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PAUL  RADER'S 
SERMONS 


PAUL  RADER 


PRICE  TWENTY-FIVE  CENTS 


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PAUL  RADER'S 
SERMONS 


BWp.SITY4F1fcUH0JS  UtWIT 
JUL  19  1918 


PRICE  TWENTY-FIVE  CENTS 


THE  BOOK  STALL 


ORDERS  TO       MIL  UUUIX  UlHLL         NEW  YOrtK 


Copyright  1916 
by  W.  Leon  Tucker 


Published  by 
THE  BOOK  STALL 
113  FULTON  ST.  NEW  YORK 


FOREWORD 


The  following  sermons  were  preached  in  the 
"Big  Tabernacle"  of  the  Moody  Church,  Chicago. 

Thousands  heard  them  and  multitudes  who 
could  not  gain  entrance  into  the  tabernacle,  were 
turned  away. 

The  proof  of  the  power  of  these  Gospel  sermons 
is  a  great  number  of  redeemed,  regenerated  and 
rescued,  who  bear  triumphant  testimony  to  the 
same. 

To  preserve  the  spirituality,  simplicity  and  sin- 
cerity of  the  preacher,  has  been  the  purpose  of 
the  publishers  who  publish  and  present  the  ser- 
mons practically  as  preached. 

There  is  everywhere  much  prayer  for  the  bless- 
ing of  God  upon  the  messages  contained  herein. 

— The  Publishers. 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 


I.  The  Blessed  Hope    5 

II.  "On  the  War-path"    17 

III.  "Wild  Oats"    31 

IV.  "Planting  and  Planning"    43 

V.  "Border  Battles"    56 

VI.  Out  of  the  Cave     69 

VII.  Kingdom  Recruiting    83 


THE  BLESSED  HOPE 

"Looking  for  that  blessed  hope  and  the  glorious  appearing 
of  the  great  God  and  our  Saviour,  Jesus  Christ,"  Titus  2:13. 

I  want  to  talk  to  you  to-night  on  this  wonderful  hope  that 
we  have,  of  the  coming  back  of  Jesus.  As  you  have  listened 
to  this  beautiful  music,  what  a  joy  it  has  been  to  you  to  hear 
in  song  the  blessed  words:  "He  is  coming  again!"  But  oh, 
what  a  joy  it  is  to  think  of  the  "time  of  music"  that  is  ahead ! 

The  devil  has  in  his  hands  a  good  deal  of  the  music  down 
here  to-day,  but,  thank  God,  there  will  be  no  music  in  hell,  for 
all  of  it  is  going  to  be  in  glory.  The  devil  may  have  a  sort 
of  trust  on  some  of  it  now,  but,  bless  God,  he  will  have  to 
resign  when  Jesus  comes. 

On  the  Vertex 
This  thought  of  the  coming  back  of  Jesus  ought  to  solem- 
nize our  hearts.  It  was  wonderful  for  the  men  of  old  to  have 
the  hope  of  Jesus'  coming,  but  it  is  far  more  wonderful  for 
us  to-day.  The  signs  of  His  soon  appearing  are  all  'round 
about  us;  we  are  living  on  the  very  vertex  of  it.  We  should 
praise  God  that  we  are  living  in  this  wonderful  day  and  age 
of  the  world. 

We  have  a  great  prospect,  my  friends.  Almost  any  time, 
almost  any  day — perhaps  to-night — we  may  be  caught  away. 
Oh,  if  you  have  not  that  hope,  you  will  find  out  that  there  is 
just  something  lacking  in  your  Christian  life.  With  me,  there 
was  always  a  trying  to  get  hold  of  something,  until  I  found 
out  that  Jesus  is  coming  back  to  the  world  again.  Things  do 
not  head  up  right  until  you  find  out  that  He  is  Himself  com- 
ing back  to  the  earth.  As  you  try  to  think  the  thing  through, 
you  are  left  in  darkness,  without  this  blessed  hope. 

Bible  Full  of  It 
Some  folks  say,  "Well,  I  haven't  time  to  read  it,  and  study 
it  out."    If  you  are  saying  that,  you  are  admitting  that  you 


6 


SERMONS  BY  PAUL  RADER 


have  not  time  to  read  a  great  portion  of  your  Bible,  for  very 
much  of  this  Book  is  taken  up  with  nothing  else  than  Jesus' 
coming  back  again;  so  that  you  leave  out  by  this  statement 
much  of  your  Bible.  We  might  pick  up  your  Bible  and  look 
it  through  and  find  a  few  little  thumb-marks  in  the  New 
Testament,  maybe,  and  a  little  in  Psalms,  and,  perhaps,  a 
little  bit  in  Genesis,  where  you  try  to  find  out  how  it  all 
started,  but  outside  of  that  you  haven't  any  Bible;  but,  praise 
God,  when  you  realize  God's  plan  in  the  coming  back  of  Jesus 
Christ,  you  will  have  a  whole  Bible  and  a  whole  circle  of 
truth.  You  have  in  His  coming  a  place  of  reckoning.  Like  a 
surveyor,  you  have  a  line,  a  base,  from  which  to  work.  It 
puts  the  cap  on  things,  the  climax  on  things.  Then  there  is 
an  end  to  your  thinking.  There  is  a  goal  to  work  toward;  it 
pays  to  wait,  for  you  are  waiting  for  something  sure.  It  pays 
to  be  patient,  for  He  will  come  as  He  promised.  It  is  a  bless- 
ed hope  truly  in  your  heart  as  the  days  go  by. 

Not  at  Death 

Now  I  find  that  a  great  many  people  are  saying  that  the 
coming  of  Jesus  is  simply  the  time  when  we  die.  That  is  one 
of  the  great  theories  with  which  folks  are  fighting  the  teach- 
ing of  the  coming  back  of  Jesus  to  this  world.  Listen:  My 
Bible  tells  me  that  the  coming  back  of  Jesus  is  a  "blessed 
hope."  Did  anybody  ever  tell  you  a  casket  was  a  blessed 
hope?  No  man  looks  ahead  to  the  time  he  is  going  to  die  as 
a  blessed  hope.  It  is  lovely  to  know  that  maybe  you  will  be 
caught  up  without  dying.  "Oh,  wonderful  thought — shall  we 
go  without  dying?" 

Think  of  it,  my  friend!  If  Jesus  were  to  come  to-night, 
this  is  the  hope:  that  as  you  sit  there  in  your  seat,  as  quickly 
as  you  can  bat  your  eye  you  will  be  changed,  "in  a  moment, 
in  the  twinkling  of  an  eye."  No  death — no  dying — no  agony — 
no  struggle.  Those  who  have  already  died  and  passed  on  are 
to  see  the  Lord  first — "The  dead  in  Christ  shall  arise  first," 
and  afterwards,  He  says,  those  of  us  who  remain  "shall  be 
caught  up  to  meet  Him  in  the  air,  and  thus  shall  we  ever  be 
with  the  Lord!"  Hallelujah! 


THE  BLESSED  HOPE 


7 


The  First-fruits 

Jesus'  disciples  saw  that  wonderful  body  of  His  come  into 
the  room  where  the  door  was  shut.  What  a  wonderful  thing! 
Friend,  do  you  know  that  a  Christian  is  a  supernatural  man? 
There  is  nothing  common  about  him.  Think  of  it — that  inside 
the  breast  of  a  man  or  a  woman  who  has  been  born  again, 
there  is  a  new  creature,  an  absolutely  new  creature.  Nothing 
like  it  has  ever  been  seen  in  the  world  but  once,  and  that  was 
when  Jesus  Himself  came  back  from  the  dead;  then  was  this 
wonderful  kind  of  new  creature  seen.    He  was  the  first-fruits. 

I  see  this  great  bird  sailing  ofd  in  the  air,  high  up  in  the 
sky;  they  tell  me  it  is  an  eagle.  I  see  a  huge  kind  of  animal 
roaring  in  the  forest,  and  with  a  voice  like  a  trumpet  he 
shakes  the  trees — and  they  tell  me  that  is  a  lion. 

I  see  this  little  bird,  a  little  yellow  affair,  twittering  in 
the  branches;  they  tell  me  it  is  a  canary. 

There  is  another  kind  of  life  in  the  ocean — a  fish. 

But  was  there  ever  this  kind  of  life  on  the  earth  where 
comes  a  man  into  a  room,  and  the  doors  are  shut?  Jesus  has 
entered  into  that  room  and  is  in  their  midst.  Thank  God,  my 
Bible  tells  me  that  He  is  the  first-fruits  of  them  that  sleep, 
and  that  afterwards  the  rest  of  us  are  to  have  a  body  like  unto 
His  glorious  body.  The  disciples  looked  at  Him  with  their 
natural  eyes,  and  as  He  talked  to  them  He  looked  like  an 
ordinary  man;  but  as  He  began  to  break  the  bread  with  two 
men  and  lifted  His  hands  from  the  table-cloth,  He  gave  Him- 
self away,  for  they  saw  the  holes  in  His  hands — and  He  van- 
ishes out  of  their  sight. 

New  Creation 

Here  is  another  kind  of  creature  that  the  world  has  never 
seen  before :  The  resurrected  Jesus ;  but,  thank  God,  thousands 
and  thousands  of  them  are  going  to  be  back  in  the  world  again, 
made  like  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  at  His  coming.  If  that  is 
a  fairy  tale  to  you,  thank  God  it  is  not  to  me.  I  recognize  that 
God  can  easily,  in  a  moment,  transform  my  body.  I  did  not 
see  how  He  could  transform  my  disposition  and  my  soul,  and 
when  I  found  out  that  God  could  get  at  the  very  functioning 


8 


SERMONS  BY  PAUL  RADER 


of  my  being  and  my  personality  and  subdue  my  will  and  cast 
out  my  sin  and  the  devil  and  the  power  that  was  within  me 
and  raging  in  my  heart,  bless  God,  I  knew  it  wasn't  going 
to  be  very  hard  for  Him  to  change  that  body  of  mine. 

You  chemists  know  how  easily  elements  are  combined. 
Friends,  God  has  the  combination  of  all  the  elements,  and  as 
far  as  His  transforming  my  body  is  concerned,  that  has  never 
been  anything  for  me  to  doubt.  God  handles  life,  and  since 
He  has  transformed  my  soul  and  filled  me  with  His  own 
Spirit,  I  am  just  waiting  for  the  time  when  the  rest  of  it,  the 
outside  shell,  shall  all  be  changed  like  unto  His  own  in  a  mo- 
ment, in  the  twinkling  of  an  eye. 

Our  Riches 

We  used  to  live  by  a  family  whose  father  had  discovered  a 
mine  about  three  miles  from  Leadville,  and  struck  it  rich.  The 
prospectors  had  given  him  figures  on  it,  and  the  father  owned 
about  sixty  per  cent,  of  the  mine  himself.  And  that  father 
and  mother  and  children  used  to  sit  there  on  their  front  porch 
and  do  nothing  but  plan  what  they  were  going  to  do  when 
they  got  that  money.  And  after  a  while  the  money  came — 
a  fortune — and  they  carried  out  most  of  the  plans  they  had 
made  back  there  on  the  porch. 

Thank  God,  I  can  sit  on  my  front  porch  to-night  and  talk 
about  something  that  will  do  more  than  money  will,  for  I  am 
going  to  live  eternally  with  Him!  He  is  coming  for  us  short- 
ly. I  am  going  to  have  a  "body  like  unto  His  own  glorious 
body."  Since  He  has  promised  me  a  body  like  unto  His  own 
and  to  let  me  come  back  in  this  world  with  Him,  reigning 
with  Him,  ruling  with  Him,  I  tell  you,  my  friend,  I  can  forget 
everything  in  this  world  that  is  not  of  God.  This  blessed  hope 
holds  you  in  the  hour  of  temptation;  this  blessed  hope  keeps 
you  strong  when  men  are  telling  you  of  some  big  thing  that 
is  going  to  come  to  pass  in  this  world. 

A  Big  Parade 

They  tell  you  about  a  big  parade  that  is  coming  when  men 
shall  show  great  marvels  of  discovery.    Thank  God  I  know  a 


THE  BLESSED  HOPE 


9 


bigger  parade  than  theirs — when  Jesus  shall  come  in  the  sky 
to  execute  judgment  with  ten  thousand  of  His  saints.  It  may 
seem  an  idle  dream  to  some,  but  it  is  not  an  idle  dream  to 
many  who  have  Jesus  in  their  heart.  I  know  there  are  many 
precious  saved  people  who  have  not  this  hope,  but  thank 
God  there  are  thousands  of  Christians  to-day  who  are  getting 
it.  They  are  going  to  Bible  Conferences  by  the  thousands. 
Open  up  a  Bible  Conference,  and  the  Christians  will  flock  to  it 
to  get  the  truth.  They  are  hungry  to  know  about  the  coming 
of  the  Lord.  Oh,  it  is  lovely  to  sit  down  and  count  your 
money  and  find  out  how  rich  you  are  going  to  be  in  glory! 

"A  tent  or  a  cottage,  why  should  I  care? 
They're  building  a  palace  for  me  over  there. 
I'm  the  child  of  a  King,  the  child  of  a  King, 
With  Jesus  my  Saviour,  I'm  the  child  of  a  King." 

What  more  of  a  mansion  do  I  want  than  a  new  body  like 
unto  the  One  that  came  into  that  room  to  His  disciples,  on 
that  night?  See  Him  with  that  body  on  the  shore;  He  has  the 
fish  ready  for  His  disciples  as  they  come  from  the  boat.  Jesus, 
Jesus,  in  this  room  to-night.  My  Jesus,  your  Jesus,  I  hope, 
and  if  He  is  not  yours,  this  is  the  night  that  you  can  make 
Him  yours  if  you  will.  Oh,  we  argue  so  much  that  we  forget 
sometimes  what  a  glorious  hope  we  have  in  Him. 

See  what  it  says  in  Second  Peter  3:13,14:  "Nevertheless 
we,  according  to  His  promise,  look  for  new  heavens  and  a  new 
earth,  wherein  dwelleth  righteousness;  wherefore,  beloved,  see- 
ing that  ye  look  for  such  things,  be  diligent  that  ye  may  be 
found  of  Him  in  peace,  without  spot,  and  blameless." 

Keep  Looking 

You  are  waiting  for  the  great  event,  and  it  pays  to  be  "dil- 
igent." It  pays  to  be  looking  up  all  the  while.  I  find  that 
this  hope,  if  you  have  it,  really  separates  you  from  the  world. 
You  begin  to  realize  that  somehow  there  is  a  life  that  you  have 
that  is  not  common  life.  You  begin  to  realize  the  mighty 
working  of  Jesus  Christ  in  your  heart;  this  wonderful  work- 
ing of  the  Spirit  of  Jesus  on  our  natures,  on  this  old  thing  we 
have  turned  over  to  Him.    It  is  not  that  you  say :  "I  am  bet- 


10 


SERMONS  BY  PAUL  RADER 


ter  than  other  people,"  but  oh,  you  begin  to  say  to  yourself, 
"My,  it  is  a  wonderful  thing  to  be  saved."  You  begin  to  love 
other  people  and  say,  "I  wish  they  had  what  I  have  !"  It  sep- 
arates you  from  the  things  of  sin.  You  do  not  want  to  defile 
God's  body  that  you  have  given  over  to  Him.  You  do  not 
want  to  be  touched  by  the  things  of  the  world.  You  want  to 
walk  in  such  a  way  that  the  moment  He  comes  you  will  be 
ready  for  Him  to  take  you  away. 

I  know  we  are  preaching  much  about  the  security  of  our 
salvation,  but  I  tell  you  these  warnings  mean  something.  It 
means  something  for  a  Christian  to  be  up-to-date  every  min- 
ute in  the  Lord.  There  is  a  warning  here,  "That  ye  might 
be  found  of  Him  in  peace,  without  spot  and  blameless." 

You  look  forward  to  it,  you  wait  for  it,  you  have  your  hope 
fixed  in  Him  and  Him  alone.  It  may  be  to-night,  it  may  be 
to-morrow,  and  so  you  can  wait  and  be  patient  and  you  can 
afford  to  set  aside  the  temptations  of  the  devil,  with  this  hope 
within  you. 

He  Couldn't  Steal 

I  remember  of  a  colored  boy  in  a  certain  family;  after  the 
folks  had  come  home  from  meeting  he  came  to  the  boss  of  the 
house  and  confessed  that  he  was  going  to  steal  something 
while  they  were  all  out. 

He  says:  "Boss,  I  was  going  to  steal  something  to-night, 
but  about  the  time  I  was  going  to  take  it,  I  would  feel  like 
somebody  was  coming  in  the  front  door;  then  I  would  feel 
like  somebody  was  coming  in  the  back  door  ;  then  I  thought  I 
heard  somebody  cough  out  on  the  walk — and  it  kept  me  from 
taking  it,  all  the  time." 

I  tell  you,  my  friends,  if  you  really  have  the  hope  of  Jesus- 
coming,  you  find  out  that  it  is  a  great  help  in  the  hour  of 
temptation.  You  say  "I  cannot  tie  up  with  this  kind  of  a  busi- 
ness; I  cannot  connect  myself  up  with  these  people,  and  those 
people,  and  the  other  people."  Why?  "I  hear  a  footstep  com- 
ing down  the  stairway  from  heaven,  and  He  may  be  here  in  a 
moment.   Jesus  may  step  in  the  next  moment  and  be  with  us." 

It  is  not  frightening  us  into  it,  but  friends,  it  is  a  constant 
guardian  of  our  attention;  we  forget  so  readily.    It  is  so  easy 


THE  BLESSED  HOPE 


11 


for  us  to  get  our  mind  upon  something  of  the  world  and  center 
here,  and  God  wants  to  absolutely  fix  our  mind  and  our  atten- 
tion upon  this:  "Looking  for  that  blessed  hope  and  the 
glorious  appearing  of  the  great  God  and  our  Saviour  Jesus 
Christ."  That  is  the  next  great  event  in  this  world;  I  am 
waiting  for  a  parade,  when  everything  that  is  of  earth,  as  far 
as  we  are  concerned,  of  the  tears,  and  the  sorrow  and  the 
sighing  and  the  temptation,  miraculously  march  off  forever, 
and  we  are  one  with  Him,  and  become  new  creatures  in  Christ 
Jesus  in  body  as  well  as  in  soul  and  spirit. 

That  is  what  God  offers  to  the  soul  that  will  take  it — a  new 
life,  a  new  being,  incorruptible,  that  does  not  fade  away — a 
God-given  inheritance. 

John  Newton's  Conversion 

We  were  reading  this  morning  in  family  worship  about  the 
conversion  of  John  Newton.  He  was  a  very  wicked  sailor, 
and  as  they  sailed  along  one  night  on  the  ship,  after  a  night 
of  debauchery  and  drunkenness  and  dissipation,  in  agony  of 
soul  he  went  to  sleep,  under  conviction.  He  dreamed  that  he 
stood  at  the  side  of  the  ship  with  a  magnificent  jewel  in  his 
hand,  and  satan  seemed  to  come  alongside  and  say :  "I  dare 
you  to  drop  that  into  the  ocean."  He  took  the  dare  and  as 
he  did,  something  seemed  to  whisper  to  his  heart,  "You  have 
lost  your  soul.    There  it  is  down  there." 

In  another  vision  Jesus  stood  beside  him,  and  He  asked  him 
if  he  wanted  his  soul  and  wanted  his  life.  "What  shall  it 
profit  a  man  if  he  gain  the  whole  world,  and  lose  his  own 
soul?" 

"Yes,  I  want  it,"  said  Newton.  Jesus  immediately  dived 
from  the  deck,  and  before  long,  with  agony  upon  His  face, 
and  showing  the  horrors  of  the  effort,  through  which  He  had 
gone,  He  appeared  again  and  had  the  little  jewel  in  His  hand. 
Newton  reached  his  hand  out  to  get  it,  but  the  Saviour  drew 
it  back.  "Oh  no,"  He  said,  "I  gave  it  to  you  once,  and  you 
were  careless  with  it  and  threw  it  away,  but  I  will  keep  it 
for  you  now.  It  is  yours,  but  it  will  never  be  thrown  away 
again." 


12 


SERMONS  BY  PAUL  RADER 


God's  Gift 

Hallelujah,  that  is  our  salvation!  God  gave  men  this  life, 
and  they  threw  it  away.  The  devil  tempted  you,  and  you  let 
it  sink.  God  help  you  to  see  that  outside  of  God  you  are  lost, 
man,  you  are  lost,  woman.  You  have  let  go;  you  have  let  the 
devil  in,  and  if  J  esus  asks  you  to-night  to  walk  up  and  take 
life  from  Him,  the  devil  tries  to  keep  you  in  that  seat;  he 
wants  you  to  go  out  again  into  the  giddy  world  and  forget 
you  are  lost. 

Life  Rescued  from  Death 
As  God  looked  down  upon  us,  He  saw  us  lost  and  undone — 
perishing.  PERISHING!  Oh,  how  that  word  makes  my  soul 
thrill  with  agony  and  horror  for  men.  I  have  heard  it  in  the 
night  hours,  I  have  heard  it  in  the  morning  hours.  Friend, 
let  me  tell  you:  there  is  nobody  can  ever  dive  into  death  and 
get  your  life  back  but  Jesus  Christ.  Jesus  broke  the  laws  of 
death.  He  appears  in  the  room  with  His  disciples  with  the 
life  in  His  own  hands.  There  He  is — His  body,  a  body  like 
ours,  transformed.  He  enters,  the  doors  being  shut,  and  says : 
"Here  is  your  life — I  am  your  life/7  What  did  He  say  to 
Mary  and  Martha:  "I  am  the  resurrection  and  the  life."  HIM- 
SELF. He  says,  "Because  I  live,  ye  shall  live  also."  Praise 
God,  I  am  so  glad  my  life  is  in  Jesus.  He  is  my  life.  God 
gave  Him  life  and  power  over  all  flesh.  The  Scripture  says 
in  Jesus'  prayer  in  the  seventeenth  of  John:  "As  Thou  hast 
given  Him  power  over  all  flesh,  that  He  should  give  eternal 
life  to  as  many  as  Thou  hast  given  Him."  He  is  holding  our 
new  bodies  safe  in  His  keeping,  and  will  deliver  them.  Oh 
blessed  hope! 

God's  Offer 

He  is  calling  you  to-night.  What  does  He  offer  you?  This 
life  He  has  died  for;  He  has  broken  the  powers  of  death  and 
now  He  offers  you  a  living  soul,  forever.  Friend,  do  you  hear 
me?  Are  your  ears  so  dull  that  you  cannot  hear  the  Gospel 
message,  that  Jesus  Christ  has  life,  and  you  have  none  unless 
you  get  it  from  Him?  You  know  not  the  way  to  God,  and 
there  is  no  other  way  to  get  to  God  and  life  outside  of  Jesus 


THE  BLESSED  HOPE 


13 


Christ.  If  you  have  not  Jesus  Christ  in  your  life,  my  friend, 
I  would  not  care  if  you  belonged  to  fifty  churches,  and  went 
every  day,  or  had  gone  through  confirmation  or  been  baptized, 
or  any  other  kind  of  ordinance.  If  I  did  not  have  the  witness 
from  heaven  that  I  was  a  child  of  God,  I  would  get  it  to-night. 
I  would  not  be  bluffed  by  the  organizations  of  men  nor  the 
theories  of  men.  I  would  have  life,  straight  out  of  God's 
heart.  And  wait  with  this  new  life  throbbing  in  my  breast  for 
His  appearing  and  a  new  body  as  His  own. 

Mortgage  Paid 

When  Jesus  died  and  His  Blood  was  spilt  on  Calvary,  He 
paid  the  debt  for  your  life.  He  took  over  the  old  business  or 
body  and  then  He  is  going  to  tear  the  whole  old  structure  of 
the  body  down  and  put  up  a  new;  He  paid  the  mortgage  on 
the  old  place.  Like  the  rich  man  Mr.  Dawes  told  about,  who 
went  back  to  the  little  New  England  farm :  the  little  farm  and 
house  where  his  father  had  lived.  When  he  got  there,  he 
found  that  the  man  who  now  owned  it  had  a  mortgage  of 
$17,000  on  the  place.  He  took  a  carpenter  along  with  him, 
and  they  walked  around  the  buildings.  He  asked  the  car- 
penter: "What  will  it  take  to  bolster  up  the  old  barnf  And 
the  carpenter  said:  "It  is  useless;  it  can't  be  patched  up." 

They  looked  at  the  old  house,  and  he  asked  him:  "How  can 
you  fix  it  up  f  But  the  carpenter  said :  "You  can't  patch  that, 
either;  it  is  useless.  The  boards  are  rotten  and  the  founda- 
tion is  rotten — the  whole  thing  is  rotten." 

"What  shall  we  dof  he  asked  him. 

"Do  you  love  this  spot?"  asked  the  carpenter. 

"I  certainly  do  love  this  old  spot — this  was  my  father's 
farm  and  buildings." 

"All  right,  then,  we  can  build  another  house  just  like  this 
one — a  new  one." 

So  they  tore  down  the  old  one  and  in  its  place  put  up  a 
new  one,  just  like  it.  The  man  paid  the  mortgage  off,  and 
built  a  new  house  on  the  old  spot. 

Thank  God,  Jesus'  Blood  paid  the  mortgage  on  this  old 
farm  of  ours.    These  old  bodies  are  wrecked  and  ruined  by 


14 


SERMONS  BY  PAUL  RADER 


sin,  and  God  could  not  have  lived  in  them  and  get  His  glory 
in  them  as  He  desired.  So  His  Son  paid  the  mortgage  on  our 
souls:  the  old  spot — and  soon  the  buildings:  our  bodies — will 
be  made  new. 

Oh,  it  is  detestable  to  the  heart  of  God  these  days  to  hear  a 
lot  of  theories  about  the  divine  spark  in  man,  when  he  is  a 
dirty,  tumble-down,  rotten  shack  on  the  outside,  and  eaten 
upon  the  inside  by  the  mortgage  of  sin. 

But  Jesus  has  paid  the  mortgage,  and  will  give  you  a  new 
heart;  you  are  born  again,  and  the  Holy  Spirit  can  come  in 
then  and  dwell  in  your  heart.  He  will  give  you  a  new  house 
to  live  in  later;  perhaps  to-night. 

New  Houses — New  City 

Then  He  is  coming  back  to  collect  all  the  houses  He  has 
made,  put  us  all  together,  so  we  will  be  a  city.  That  is  the 
New  Jerusalem;  a  city;  you  are  a  house,  and  I  am  a  house. 
I  do  not  know  what  street  you  are  living  on,  but  I  am  on  the 
corner  of  Joy  Street  and  Hallelujah  Avenue,  and  you  can  live 
there,  too,  if  you  want  to.  God  has  given  you  a  mansion,  in 
this  wonderful  city  of  our  God,  that  cometh  down  out  of  heav- 
en:   this  wonderful  city,  the  Bride  of  the  Bridegroom. 

This  is  the  wonderful  creation  God  offers  you  to-night.  It 
is  not  a  theory.  Jesus  demonstrated  it  before  the  eyes  of  His 
disciples;  this  wonderful  resurrection  body  of  Jesus  was 
shown  openly  and  handled! 

Warning  in  Our  Day 
We  have  a  lot  of  theories  these  days,  but  God  wants  real 
faith  in  your  heart.  If  you  believe  that  Jesus  can  change  you 
in  a  moment  and  in  the  twinkling  of  an  eye,  and  it  may  be 
any  one  of  these  days,  do  you  mean  to  tell  me  that  you  are 
not  going  to  separate  from  these  things  of  the  world?  You 
will  say  "I  cannot  afford  to  have  any  of  this  stuff  hanging  to 
me.  I  will  restore  to  any  man  anything  I  have  wronged.  I 
will  clean  up,  I  will  get  straight  with  men  and  women."  The 
coming  of  Jesus  is  the  warning  in  our  day,  my  friend.  As 
Noah  preached  to  his  day  and  said:    "The  flood  is  coming," 


THE  BLESSED  HOPE 


15 


the  warning  of  our  day  is  that  the  tribulation  is  coming  and 
the  Bride  must  make  ready  for  Jesus'  coming.  "He  that  hath 
this  hope  in  him  purifieth  himself,  even  as  He  is  pure." 

Hard? 

Do  you  say,  "It  is  a  hard  life  to  live"?  Hard? — and  you 
may  have  a  glorified  body  in  ten  minutes?  Oh,  God,  somehow 
put  a  faith  in  us  to-night  that  will  laugh  at  the  little  perse- 
cutions of  earth.  Oh,  we  need  a  glorious  vision  of  what  it  is 
to  be  saved.  He  may  come  at  any  moment.  Can  you  say  you 
are  ready,  brother?  Ready  for  that  soul's  bright  home? 
Sister,  brother,  are  you  ready?   You  can  be  ready. 

It  will  consecrate  you.  It  will  get  you  to  the  place  where 
you  say,  "Lord,  yes — I  see  why  you  want  me  to  be  given 
up  to  you." 

It  Focuses  the  Soul 

It  focuses  the  soul.  It  gets  your  mind  fixed  on  one  thing. 
It  seemed  to  me  I  had  about  ten  different  minds  before  Jesus 
became  all  and  in  all.  One  day  I  would  think  this  way,  and 
the  next  day  a  few  arguments  would  switch  me  over  and  I 
would  think  the  other  way.  But,  friends,  when  you  get  all 
that  you  have  in  Jesus,  and  center  in  Him,  thank  God  you  live 
a  peaceful,  steady  sort  of  a  life.  Your  heart  will  be  fixed; 
your  eyes  will  be  fixed;  and  folks  will  know  right  where  you 
are  stepping.  They  know  you  have  made  up  your  mind  to 
go  along  with  Jesus  and  are  going  right  along  that  way.  We 
talk  about  a  "bee-line."  That  bee  never  loses  sight  in  his 
mind  of  that  little  hive,  all  the  time  he  is  flying;  and  you 
will  not  lose  sight  of  that  little  hive  of  yours  up  there  in 
glory,  where  God's  honey  is  stored  and  soon  to  be  given  out 
to  His  own.   You  will  be  making  a  bee-line  for  it,  every  day. 

When  you  get  the  hope  of  the  coming  of  Jesus  Christ,  you 
will  have  one  ambition.  Folks  won't  worry  about  stepping 
on  your  toes.  You  will  be  picking  them  up  so  fast  they  can't 
step  on  them  anyhow.   You  are  headed  right. 


16 


SERMONS  BY  PAUL  RADER 


Are  We  Ready? 
Brother,  are  you  ready?    Sister,  are  you  ready?  Suppose 
the  thing  was  to  strike  here  to-night.    How  about  you? 

I  Strike  My  Hand 

Now  it  is  all  over.  Suppose  the  whole  thing  had  struck  as 
I  struck  my  hand  just  now — how  about  you?  That  is  exactly 
how  quick  it  is  coming.  The  devil  is  trying  to  tell  you  you 
have  a  lot  of  time,  but  listen:  When  it  comes  you  will  have 
no  time  to  prepare.  It  comes  faster  than  death.  Death  may 
creep  on  and  you  may  have  three  or  four  weeks  of  preparation 
— but  Jesus  may  come  to-night — in  a  moment.  He  says: 
"Watch,  for  you  know  neither  the  day  nor  the  hour  that  the 
Son  of  man  cometh." 

God  help  you  to  wake  up !  Supposing  it  was  all  over,  just 
a  few  moments  ago — where  would  you  be?  Just  answer  this — 
don't  put  any  "if's"  or  "ands"  in  it — where  would  you  be?  In- 
side or  outside? 


"ON  THE  WAR-PATH" 

This  subject  was  suggested  to  me  when  Mr.  Johnson  and 
Mr.  Woolley  came  home  from  Canada.  Mr.  Woolley  needed  a 
vacation  very  badly,  so  he  took  one  of  twenty-four  hours.  I 
don't  know  how  many  pounds  he  gained,  but  I  gained  a  lot  of 
information  myself.  Woolley  tells  me  everything  he  knows, 
and  then  I  preach. 

He  told  me  how  one  of  the  boys  there  in  Canada  who  had 
gone  to  the  front  had  written  his  mother  that  there  was  no 
"V.  C."  blood  in  him.  His  duty  was  to  carry  ammunition 
along  a  certain  road,  and  he  wrote  that  the  enemy  had  their 
range  exactly  and  had  dropped  bombs  all  along  the  road,  on 
every  side  of  them;  that  the  war-path  was  strewn  with  the 
bodies  of  dead  men,  dead  animals,  broken-up  wagons,  all  sorts 
of  explosions  had  occurred — and  every  time  he  took  a  step  he 
trembled. 

Great  Waste 

My  friends,  because  we  appear  to  be  living  in  peace  to-day, 
so  in  contrast  to  war,  we  seem  to  be  calm  about  some  of  the 
great  waste  of  life  about  us.  Men  are  being  hurled  into  eter- 
nity by  the  thousands,  going  into  death  by  the  millions — men 
who  know  not  Jesus.  On  life's  war-path  to-night  are  strewn 
the  carcasses  of  men  and  women,  young  and  old,  all  over  the 
world.  Sin  and  war,  my  friends,  are  greatly  alike.  I  want  to 
call  your  attention  to-night  to  the  resemblances  between  the 
war-path  and  the  path  of  a  sinner;  to  give  you  a  little  com- 
parison. 

God  says  in  the  sixth  chapter  of  Romans,  the  twenty-third 
verse :  "For  the  wages  of  sin  is  death ;  but  the  gift  of  God  is 
eternal  life  through  Jesus  Christ  our  Lord." 

What  a  wonderful  verse! 

They  Volunteer 
The  wages  of  sin  is  death.    The  wages  of  war  is  death. 
There  is  no  other  end  to  either.    They  go  into  it  for  death. 


IS 


SERMONS  BY  PAUL  RADER 


They  volunteer  for  death.  They  march  out  with  death- 
dealing  instruments  on  their  shoulders,  with  their  great  en- 
gines pulling  the  guns  of  destruction  and  of  death. 

Sin,  my  friends,  is  to  end  in  death,  and  all  along  the  path 
of  the  sinner  there  are  strewn  the  carcasses  of  men  and  of 
women  who  have  sinned.  Death  comes  to  men  from  sin  as 
it  does  in  war  from  bullets. 

Explosive  Sin 

There  are  some  folks  who  creep  along  in  sin  and  die;  there 
are  other  men  in  whom  sin  simply  explodes — the  devil  drops 
his  awful  bomb  and  they  are  gone.  I  had  a  boy  friend  in 
college,  on  the  foot-ball  team;  he  was  considered  one  of  the 
best  fellows  in  college — and  he  went  on  a  trip  one  day.  He 
met  a  woman;  he  had  never  met  her  like  in  the  world  before. 
His  father  had  money;  and  inside  of  three  weeks  he  was  gone 
— sin  had  grabbed  him,  taken  him  captive.  The  poor  father 
and  mother  were  horrified,  the  school  was  horrified — but  he 
was  gone.  He  had  not  only  shot  her,  but  shot  himself.  It 
was  an  explosion.  And  so  sin,  my  friends,  on  the  war-path 
takes  some  people  that  quickly.  Others  live  along,  travel  a  lit- 
tle further,  and  sin's  death  gets  them,  but  with  some  it  is  an 
explosion. 

A  Quick  Shot 
A  poor  man,  with  a  wife  and  two  children,  living  in  the 
valley  near  Dayton,  when  the  flood  came  went  to  his  home 
from  his  work  and  found  the  mother  gone,  the  children  gone. 
He  never  had  taken  a  drink  in  his  life  as  far  as  anybody 
knew — what  made  him  do  it  then  no  one  knew — but  he  went 
to  another  part  of  the  town,  began  to  talk  with  some  men 
there,  and  the  first  thing  they  knew  his  head  was  inflamed  with 
liquor.  Two  weeks  after  that  he  woke  up  in  jail,  and  has  to 
serve  years  for  the  things  that  took  place. 

I  say  to  you,  my  friends,  if  you  do  not  know  the  awful 
deadliness  of  sin,  wake  up  to-night!  The  wisest  man  on  earth 
is  the  man  who  reckons  on  the  awful  power  of  sin.  Here  are 
boys  to-night  on  that  war-path;  some  of  them  whistle  and 
some  sing  and  some  crack  their  dull  jokes  as  they  go  along; 


"ON  THE  WAR-PATH" 


19 


but  friends,  there  is  only  one  safe  place  to  walk,  and  that  is 
under  the  sheltering  protection  of  the  Blood  and  power  of 
Jesus  Christ.  No  bomb  can  touch  you  there.  Praise  God 
that  you  can  go  out  and  in  and  find  pasture  with  Him,  while 
the  war-path  is  strewn  with  bombs. 

Men  Go  Crazy 

There  is  suicide  in  war.  Men  go  crazy.  Men  went  out  with 
romance  in  their  hearts,  but  have  gone  crazy,  with  the  poison 
of  the  food,  with  the  lack  of  sleep,  with  the  noise. 

My  friend,  a  young  man,  came  back  to  the  University  from 
the  Spanish  War,  and  told  me  about  an  experience  that  hap- 
pened in  his  tent  one  night,  when  two  of  the  boys  suddenly 
went  insane.  One  of  them  drew  his  own  sabre  and  stuck 
it  into  his  heart.  They  went  to  pieces,  because  of  the  poison 
of  the  food.  There  are  thousands  of  people  who  are  commit- 
ting suicide,  going  madly  into  sin,  because  of  the  poison  of 
it.  It  poisons  men.  I  have  looked  into  faces  of  men  who 
have  sin  soaked  in  their  hearts,  and  they  are  poisoned,  they 
are  doped,  they  are  wild:  and  they  go  right  along  into  it. 
My  grandfather  used  to  tell  about  a  charge  in  the  Civil  War; 
how  the  boys  hadn't  had  any  sleep,  nothing  to  eat,  their  shoes 
worn  out,  their  clothing  worn  out;  they  could  hardly  carry 
their  muskets;  but  when  he  gave  the  order  to  charge,  they 
charged  face  foremost  into  the  enemy  without  even  lifting 
a  gun,  and  the  slaughter  was  terrific. 

Anxious  to  Plunge 
There  are  young  fellows  to-night  waiting  for  the  cabaret 
show  to  open,  that  they  may  charge  into  the  things  of  sin. 
There  are  young  women  to-night,  wild  to  plunge  into  sin; 
there  is  the  girl  who,  like  a  fool,  heedless  of  the  mother  who 
begs  her  not  to  go  with  that  fellow,  leaps  into  the  leper's  arms. 
Into  that  vile,  rotten  man's  arms,  his  rotten  lips  upon  her 
cheeks,  she  plunges,  in  the  face  of  her  mother  who  pleads  with 
her  to  turn  aside.  Oh,  the  awful  wreck  from  sin  there  is  to- 
night! Oh,  as  you  see  the  wreck  of  home  and  of  young  wom- 
anhood in  our  day,  as  you  walk  the  streets,  it  makes  you  cry 


20 


SERMONS  BY  PAUL  RADER 


out  to  God  to  send  salvation  to  young  men  and  young  women. 
I  beg  you  in  God's  name,  cover  yourselves  with  the  cleansing 
Blood  of  Jesus,  and  let  Him  keep  you  from  sin  I  Jesus  wants 
to  save  you,  He  is  anxious  to  be  your  Saviour,  He  is  pleading 
with  you  to  step  out,  and  if  you  dare  to  step  out,  praise  God, 
He  will  take  you. 

Traitors  ? 

There  are  others  who  are  traitors,  there  are  others  who  are 
spies,  in  warfare.  Oh,  how  many  men  are  betraying  young 
life.  How  many  women  are  betraying  young  life.  When 
they  began  to  look  into  the  white  slave  trade,  they  found 
that  women — women  who  knew  what  a  horrible,  awful  thing 
it  was  to  lose  everything  precious  to  themselves  in  virtue, — 
were  loaning  their  aid  to  get  young  girls  in  a  life  of  shame. 
There  are  men  taking  37oung  men  to  teach  them  the  business 
of  sin;  talking  a-bout  the  habits  of  sin,  joshing  and  joking 
about  the  deep  things  of  crime,  about  the  sacredness  of  wom- 
anhood, fooling  and  telling  stories  about  it  in  the  presence  of 
young  men;  these  are  the  men  who  are  traitors  to  God,  these 
are  the  men  who  are  in  league  with  the  devil. 

Oh  my  friends,  it  was  an  awful  thing  in  Ireland  for  those 
men  to  have  to  be  shot  down  by  a  government  which  they 
had  tried  to  put  out  of  commission.  It  was  an  awful  thing  in 
our  country  to  have  to  take  a  traitor  out  and  shoot  him;  but 
think  of  it!  There  are  men  who  are  traitors  against  God; 
God,  who  is  trying  to  get  men  out  of  sin  and  give  them  liberty. 

The  Show  System 
God  help  you  to-night  to  get  out  of  the  world  system  that  is 
filled  with  its  sin,  and  join  Jesus  Christ.  The  trouble  with 
Christians  these  days,  my  friends,  is  that  there  is  too  much 
lolly-pop  life  with  us.  We  need  a  little  hard  persecution,  in 
order  to  stick  by  Jesus  Christ.  We  have  too  many  people 
who  are  liars  about  this  thing.  I  ask  you  which  ones  of  you 
are  Christians  and  you  will  raise  your  hand  in  the  tabernacle, 
and  the  next  night  will  find  you  in  some  dirty  show,  having 
your  lowest  sensations  tickled.    There  isn't  a  show  on  earth 


"ON  THE  WAR-PATH' 


21 


that  hasn't  behind  it  a  great  system  of  cultivating  the  pas- 
sions of  men  and  women.  It  is  all  sin  promotion — that  is  how 
they  get  their  money.  Oh,  friend,  let  Jesus  into  your  heart 
to-night.  I  am  so  glad  to-night  I  have  an  experience  that  is 
real  and  know  what  Jesus  can  do  for  a  sinful  heart.  I  am 
so  glad  that  somehow  God  arrested  me,  tried  me,  found  me 
guilty  of  sin,  and  then  gave  me  Jesus  to  pay  it  all  and  set 
me  free. 

The  Romance 

Next,  this  call  to  the  world-warfare,  and  sin,  is  just  alike. 
The  colors  are  there,  there  seems  to  be  a  romance  about  it. 
Young  men  go  out  under  patriotic  speeches,  but  they  are  going 
to  death.  And  the  devil  imitates  that  sort  of  thing  himself. 
The  devil  gets  the  music  to  going,  he  puts  in  the  lights,  puts 
in  the  song,  he  puts  in  the  dance,  he  puts  in  the  martial 
music  and  the  little  wiggle  that  is  in  the  dance,  and  all  the  elu- 
siveness  of  it,  and  even  parades  himself  with  the  fancy  danc- 
ers. He  starts  out  a  young  couple  of  fancy  dancers  with  the 
latest  dances  and  isn't  satisfied  to  have  them  in  New  York, 
but  sends  them  out  over  the  country  to  teach  everybody  else 
how  to  wiggle  themselves  to  hell.  The  call  to  the  deviFs  work 
and  to  sin,  my  friends,  always  has  fine  music  with  it,  it  looks 
like  it  is  going  to  come  out  fine,  but  from  that  dark  line  of 
death  and  of  hell,  men  will  never  march  back. 

No  Medals 

There  never  will  be  a  time  when  the  medals  will  be  passed 
out  to  them;  it  is  forever,  to  eternity,  into  the  jaws  of  death, 
because  they  refuse  Jesus  Christ  as  their  Saviour.  God  help 
you  to  take  Him  to-night.  He  offers  to  take  you  off  the  war- 
path, and  Himself  to  be  the  Captain  of  your  salvation.  God 
made  Him  perfect  through  suffering,  so  that  He  was  able  to 
succor  those  that  are  tempted.  The  Lord  knows  I  am  tempted, 
He  knows  you  are  tempted,  but  praise  God  we  have  a 
mighty  Saviour  that  can  save  from  sin  and  keep  from  sin.  He 
will  hold  you  fast.    God  only  wants  to  get  hold  of  you. 


22  SERMONS  BY  PAUL  RADER 


Sin  Alone? 

Neither  a  soldier  nor  a  sinner  ever  suffers  alone.  No,  my 
friend,  if  some  of  you  think  you  do,  you  are  altogether  mis- 
taken. When  that  soldier  goes  out  in  the  trench  and  fires 
his  gun  and  the  bomb  explodes  and  these  five  men  are  blown 
to  pieces,  this  poor  fellow  lies  on  the  dump  in  his  agony  and 
cries  for  the  doctor,  and  at  the  going  down  of  the  sun  his  soul 
passes  out  and  he  is  gone.  There  they  are  to-night  by  the 
thousands,  dying  like  that, — the  worst  war  the  world  has  ever 
known.  But  my  friend,  right  out  of  this  tabernacle  to-night, 
perhaps  some  young  man,  some  older  man,  some  young  wom- 
an, some  older  woman,  will  go  out  into  sin  and  think  they  are 
going  to  die  alone  and  suffer  in  sin  alone.  No  sir,  no  man 
can  sin  alone,  no  woman  can  sin  alone. 

Family,  Too 

Thiuk  of  young  Orpet  who  is  being  tried,  his  father  and 
mother  sitting  by  him,  and  on  the  other  side  an  old  father 
and  mother — they  used  to  be  friends  of  the  family  before,  but 
now  a  little  girl  is  dead.  Is  he  the  only  one  injured*?  No, 
every  one  connected  with  him  is  tainted,  families  ruined,  homes 
wrecked;  it  wasn't  his  own  sin  alone;  others  had  to  share  it 
with  him.  Every  time  there  is  a  sinful  boy  in  a  home,  the 
whole  family  is  affected  by  him.  He  is  not  just  one  black 
sheep  alone,  but  every  sheep  in  the  family  suffers  with  him. 

Homes  Suffer 

When  they  bring  the  news  back  from  the  firing-line,  that 
fellow  that  is  shot  doesn't  suffer  alone,  but  every  one  in  the 
family  suffers  with  a  broken  heart.  The  suffering  out  yonder 
to-night  is  nothing  to  the  suffering  when  the  news  is  brought 
back,  when  in  the  days  to  come  the  poor  widows  and  orphans 
have  to  make  their  way  in  this  world,  weakened  by  the  loss 
of  the  men  who  have  gone  out  to  their  death.  War  is  hell; 
it  is  an  awful  picture  of  sin.  You  cannot  suffer  alone.  The 
sins  of  your  life  will  have  to  go  on  with  other  people.  Praise 
God  that  only  the  power  of  Jesus  Christ  can  break  that  power 


"ON  THE  WAR-PATH" 


23 


and  cut  that  connection  and  let  the  Blood  of  Jesus  Christ  take 
care  of  the  past  and  of  the  future.  What  a  wonderful  thing 
Jesus  offers  to  you,  men  and  women, — that  if  you  come  down 
these  aisles  and  take  Him  to-night,  God  forgives  the  past,  and 
puts  it  away  as  though  you  had  never  sinned !    Glory  to  God ! 

Why  Stay? 

God  help  you  to  see  the  awfulness  of  sin  to-night,  and 
what  a  fool  a  man  is  to  stay  in  it  when  J esus  offers  the  chance 
to  get  out;  offers  to  cleanse  you  so  that  God  looks  at  you 
as  if  you  had  never  sinned. 

A  young  fellow  down  South  said  to  his  father  one  day :  "I 
am  going  out  to-night."  They  were  sitting  at  the  table,  his 
mother  and  sisters  there.  The  father  said:  "Where  are  you 
going?"  The  boy  told  him,  and  the  father  rose  up  from  the 
table  and  said:  "You  are  not  going  out  to-night,  my  son — 
you  are  not  going  to  go  with  that  girl." 

"What  business  is  it  of  yours?" 

"I  am  your  father." 

"Well,  I  am  going  with  whoever  I  please — that  is  nothing 
to  you,  is  it?" 

"Bert,  we  have  a  family.  We  have  a  right  to  know  who 
you  go  with.  Surely  a  father  has  some  rights,  a  mother  has 
some  rights,  and  Bert,  you  are  the  only  boy  and  there  are 
five  daughters  in  my  home.  If  you  make  a  misstep  it  throws 
dirt  upon  them  and  the  whole  family.  As  a  man  and  as  your 
father  I  beg  of  you  to  give  that  woman  up." 

Bert  turned  and  whirled  around,  and  said  to  the  whole  lot 
of  them:  "What  do  I  care?  It  is  my  business.  I  will  go 
with  whom  I  please." 

One  of  the  sisters  close  to  his  age  who  had  chummed  with 
him,  came  running  to  him  and  threw  her  arms  around  him 
and  said:  "Bert,  you  will  stay  at  home  to-night,  won't  you?" 

"Look  here,  sis,  it  is  none  of  your  business.  I  am  an  in- 
dividual; I  have  some  rights." 

The  father  talked  to  him  again  in  the  parlor  before  he  went, 
and  said  to  him,  "Bert,  I  think  I  could  take  a  gun  and  shoot 


24 


SERMONS  BY  PAUL  RADER 


your  brains  out  and  be  happier  than  to  see  you  go  out  that 
door  like  this." 

The  boy  said:  "That  is  it — for  your  own  selfishness — you 
would  like  to  blow  my  brains  out.  I  have  a  right  to  do  what 
I  please." 

Oh,  a  great  many  of  you  here  to-night  think  you  have  a 
right  to  sin  as  you  please,  when  you  please,  and  as  long  as 
you  please,  but  I  say  to  you,  you  are  not  going  to  answer  to 
God  for  the  sin  in  your  own  life,  but  for  the  sin  you  put 
in  other  lives. 

Sin  Surprises 

The  boy  walked  out  of  that  home,  and  he  never  any  more 
expected  to  be  in  jail  that  night  than  to  fly  to  the  moon.  They 
were  sitting  around  a  table  in  an  adjoining  town,  a  few  of 
them.  They  had  been  drinking;  there  was  another  young 
fellow  there  who  had  been  going  with  this  girl.  The  girl 
wanted  to  break  with  Bert — his  father  hadn't  given  him 
enough  money  to  suit  her — and  when  this  other  young  fellow 
insulted  him,  he  turned  to  the  girl,  grabbed  his  revolver — 
nobody  ever  knew  where  he  got  it — and  pinned  her  first,  and 
the  man  afterwards.  The  people  grabbed  him  and  took  him 
to  the  jail,  and  in  another  wagon  carried  home  two  dead  bod- 
ies. And  that  whole  family  of  girls,  that  noble  father,  a 
heartbroken,  suffering  group  of  those  who  loved  him,  had  to 
walk  out  behind  that  casket  after  the  crowd  had  gathered  at 
the  jail  and  seen  him  hanged  by  the  neck,  dead. 

He  Delivers 

My  God,  teach  some  of  you  people  what  sin  is  to-night — sin 
— sin — sin — the  stuff  that  is  in  your  life,  that  Jesus  can  take 
out,  that  He  can  put  away  from  you  as  far  as  the  East  is  from 
the  West.  He  will  keep  you  from  sin,  from  the  bombs  of  the 
devil,  the  wiles  of  the  devil,  the  temptation  of  the  devil.  Hal- 
lelujah, I  am  telling  you  about  something  that  is  real!  Jesus 
does  exactly  the  thing  I  am  talking  about:  cleanses  and  de- 
livers. 

The  record  never  can  be  written  of  war.  What  newspaper 
can  ever  publish  the  sufferings  of  this  war  up  to  date,  the 


"ON  THE  WAR-PATH" 


25 


things  the  soldiers  have  done  when  they  have  gone  in  to  a 
town,  the  poor,  suffering  women  ravaged,  the  awful  horrors 
that  have  swept  over  a  village.  The  papers  say  "So  many 
thousands  dead,"  but  that  isn't  a  millionth  part  of  all  the 
suffering — the  famine  that  goes  with  it,  the  stricken,  broken 
hearts.  Think  of  the  Armenian  question  alone.  One  of  the 
men  who  seems  to  know  the  most  about  it  says  that  over  a 
million  of  them  have  gone  down  in  that  bloody  slaughter,  and 
one  man  in  the  province  of  Van  boasted  that  in  twenty-four 
hours  he  would  rid  that  province  of  50,000  Armenians.  And 
made  the  boast  good. 

Wake  Up! 

My  friends,  the  world  is  full  of  sin  to-night.  Wake  up  be- 
fore Jesus  comes  back,  and  get  under  the  Blood  of  Jesus 
Christ!  I  say  to  you  that  we  are  living  in  the  most  terrific 
day  the  world  has  ever  known.  You  may  call  me  a  fanatic 
if  you  please  but  bless  God  I  will  try  to  wake  you  up  to  the 
awful  things  round  about  us.  God  help  you  men  and  women 
to  stay  out  of  sin  to-night,  and  see  the  clouds  of  judgment 
just  ahead. 

No  Record  Here 

The  record  can  never  be  written  here,  but  every  bit  of  it 
is  up  there  and  it  is  against  you  unless  the  Blood  of  Jesus 
Christ  has  blotted  it  out.  That  is  God's  way,  and  it  is  perfect- 
ly just.  Why?  Because  you  can  have  cleansing  to-night  if 
you  will  take  the  step  and  confess  Him  before  men.  You  can 
have  it  for  nothing,  simply  if  you  will  take  it.  There  is  a 
good  deal  up  to  your  will  to-night,  that  little  will  power  that 
has  taken  you  to  sin  and  said,  "Yes"  to  the  devil.  You  have 
in  your  breast  to-night  the  decision  that  will  land  you  into 
heaven  forever  or  into  hell  forever.  God  help  you  to  see  it. 
You  don't  have  to  theorize.  God  says  to  you  "Come"  and  you, 
with  your  stubborn  will  say  back  to  Him,  "I  won't  come" — 
and  you  go  on  in  this  war-path  of  sin. 


26 


SERMONS  BY  PAUL  RADER 


No  Fear 

There  are  lots  of  folks  who  have  not  the  fear  of  God  in 
their  hearts.  There  are  men  who  will  ruthlessly  run  into  dan- 
ger. Some  of  you  say,  "Mr.  Rader,  my  conscience  is  all 
right."  My  friends,  the  man  who  sees  sin  as  he  ought  to  see 
it,  and  then  says  he  wants  to  run  with  it,  there  is  only  one 
charitable  thing  to  say  about  such  a  man — and  that  is  that  he 
is  a  fool. 

If  You  Will 

It  is  all  up  to  your  will.  We  have  books,  books,  books, 
published  about  the  divinity  of  Jesus  Christ.  Let  me  tell  you 
something.  That  poor  down-and-out  drunkard  that  just  says 
"Yes"  to  the  first  message  he  hears  about  Jesus,  and  staggers 
up  the  aisle  and  falls  at  the  altar  and  trusts  Jesus  Christ,  will 
know  more  about  the  divinity  of  Christ  than  all  the  high-brows 
who  haven't  taken  Jesus  as  a  Saviour  will  know  in  a  million 
years.  Mary,  simple  Mary,  Lazarus'  sister,  knew  of  the  di- 
vinity of  Jesus,  knew  He  was  to  die,  and  anointed  Him  for 
His  burial.  She  knew  Him.  You  can  know  Him,  thank  God, 
and  He  will  reveal  Himself  to  you  in  a  peculiar  way — there 
will  not  any  two  of  you  have  the  same  experience,  but  you 
will  say,  "I  am  talking  about  the  same  person." 

He  Talks 

Always  He  talks  to  your  will — He  says,  "I  can  explain  it 
if  you  will  obey  Me."  What  does  a  man  know  about  what 
a  beefsteak  can  do  who  will  not  put  it  in  his  stomach?  What 
does  a  man  know  about  what  water  can  do  who  will  not  drink 
it?  He  will  die  in  agony  without  water,  but  if  he  just  drinks 
it,  not  knowing  anything  about  it,  he  will  live.  J esus  is  water, 
He  is  bread,  He  is  life  itself,  and  He  will  reveal  Himself  to 
you,  when? — when  you  consent  to  turn  from  your  sin  and 
obey  Him. 

On  Christmas  morning  we  throw  back  the  doors  and  all 
come  in  to  what?  We  say,  "What  is  in  that  package?"  "I 
don't  know,  but  I  think  it  is  so-and-so."  "What  do  you  think 
is  in  the  other  one?"   What  are  you  all  in  for?   Do  you  know 


"ON  THE  WAR-PATH" 


27 


what  you  are  going  to  get?  No,  but  it  is  the  time  for  gifts,  so 
you  all  come  in,  and  when  you  open  them  up,  you  will  know. 

A  Gift 

Jesus  gives  life,  and  His  gift  is  to  be  put  into  your  heart; 
then  when  He  by  His  Spirit  unwraps  it  you  will  know.  No 
man  in  all  the  world  ever  sought  Jesus  who  did  not  find  Him. 
He  has  the  gift,  and  you  are  to  come — that  is  your  part. 

Nesbitt's  Story 

This  is  Henry  Nesbitt's  story  as  I  heard  it.  He  was  a 
lawyer  in  a  little  town  in  Missouri  in  his  younger  days.  He 
had  a  dear  little  wife  whom  he  said  he  loved,  and  they  came 
out  to  Colorado  to  live.  He  was  an  orator,  and  such  a  brainy 
jovial  fellow  that  all  the  folks  loved  him.  They  wanted  to  elect 
him  to  office,  but  his  wife  kept  him  back  for  his  own  sake.  His 
wife  knew  the  Lord,  trusted  the  Lord,  but  he  made  fun  of  her 
when  she  prayed.  They  had  gone  to  school  together,  and 
I  remember  how  he  told  of  taking  the  ribbon  off  her  hair  in 
school  and  tying  something  else  on  it.  He  was  a  great  big 
fellow,  about  six  feet  two  and  weighed  two  hundred  and  sixty 
or  two  hundred  and  seventy  pounds,  with  a  splendid  face;  and 
he  came  from  a  fine  family. 

His  wife  was  a  timid  little  soul,  who  wouldn't  argue  with 
him, — she  just  lived  it.  Henry  didn't  pay  any  attention  to 
what  she  said;  he  would  say,  "She  is  a  lovely  little  woman, 
but  her  head  isn't  big."  All  the  fellows  looked  up  to  Nesbitt, 
but  he  didn't  know  the  Lord,  and  how  many  boys  in  that  city 
would  say,  "Nesbitt  don't  belong  to  the  Lord,  and  he  is  a 
pretty  good  fellow!"  They  didn't  know  he  was  being  pre- 
served in  the  sugar  of  prayer,  that  his  wife  was  holding  him 
up  to  the  Lord  all  the  time. 

Take  these  sweet,  godly  women  out  of  the  world,  and  things 
would  go  to  rack  and  ruin  in  a  short  time. 

Nesbitt  would  say  to  her:  "Listen,  tell  me  this." 

"I  can't  tell  you  anything,"  she  would  answer.  "There  is  no 
arguing  with  you.  I  just  have  it  in  here — I  can't  tell  you 
about  it." 


28 


SERMONS  BY  PAUL  RADER 


They  were  sitting  at  a  meal  one  day,  and  had  the  first  arti- 
chokes they  ever  had.  They  had  never  tasted  them  before. 
She  pulled  off  one  of  the  little  leaves,  and  skinned  it  in  her 
teeth — and  said,  "Wait  a  minute,  don't  eat  yours  yet.  Now 
ask  me  how  it  tastes." 

"What  is  the  use?  You  couldn't  tell  me  how  a  thing  tastes. 
I'll  have  to  try  myself." 

"Sure,  that's  it,"  she  replied.  "To  know  what  I  am  tasting, 
all  you  have  to  do  is  to  pull  off  your  leaf,  stick  it  in  your 
mouth,  and  what  you  taste  then  will  be  the  same  as  what  I 
am  tasting.  It  is  the  same  way  with  the  life  of  Jesus  in  the 
soul,  Henry  Nesbitt!" 

We  know  that  we  know  and  we  don't  know  how  we  know, 
but  we  know  that  we  know. 

One  day  she  asked  a  number  of  women  to  come  and  pray 
with  her  in  the  afternoon,  and  she  said  to  them,  "I  only 
brought  you  up  here  to  pray  for  Henry,  not  for  me.  I  am 
going  fast.    A  few  more  days  and  I'll  be  in  glory." 

They  came  when  she  died;  they  had  part  of  the  funeral 
service  in  the  house,  the  rest  down  at  the  big  brown  church 
where  Nesbitt  used  to  go  sometimes  Sunday  mornings  with 
her.  He  sat  through  it  with  a  peculiar  look  on  his  face.  Every 
one  said,  "I  wonder  what  the  judge  will  do  now."  He  walked 
up  to  the  house,  and  shut  himself  in  the  library,  closed  the 
window  blinds,  locked  the  doors,  and  told  the  servants  to  let 
him  alone.  Up  and  down,  up  and  down,  he  walked.  He  knew 
he  was  up  against  it.  He  had  looked  into  that  little  grave, 
and  it  had  changed  everything.  He  was  facing  life  from  a 
different  angle  than  he  had  faced  it  before. 

Oh  wake  up,  friend — death  is  ahead  of  you!  Why  do  we 
bluff  ourselves? 

He  walked  up  and  down  in  that  room,  and  finally  said :  "Oh 
God,  I  have  got  to  find  you !  I  have  got  to  find  you  or  I  will 
die."  He  turned  and  with  one  great  fist  lifted  in  the  air  he 
said,  "Oh  God,  I  will!  I  don't  know  what  it  is,  but  I  will." 
And  he  threw  himself  over  a  plush  chair  and  cried  as  though 
his  heart  would  break,  and  as  he  did  a  great  vase,  the  hand- 
somest one  in  their  beautiful  home,  fell  and  broke  all  to  pieces. 


"ON  THE  WAR-PATH7' 


29 


He  got  on  his  feet  and  said,  "Am  I  crazy?  What  made  the 
vase  fall?"  Then  he  began  to  reason:  "Vases  don't  fall  of 
themselves.  I  don't  know  who  has  been  listening,  but  some- 
body moved  that  vase."  He  stood  there  and  said,  "Come  out 
from  behind  those  portieres:  some  one  must  be  behind  this 
vase  breaking." 

A  servant  came  out,  trembling,  and  said,  "Sir,  I  only  wanted 
to  help  you,  to  keep  you  from  dying.  They  elected  me  to  come 
in  here  to  protect  you  against  yourself.  Sir,  they  feared  you 
would  commit  suicide." 

"That  is  all  right,  you  can  go,"  said  Nesbitt,  and  the  minute 
the  man  had  gone,  without  any  Scripture  verse  on  his  lips, 
for  he  knew  none  of  it  by  heart;  he  only  knew  the  life  of 
his  wife  and  what  she  had  told  him,  he  said,  "I  see  it.  That 
vase  fell  because  somebody  pushed  it.  I  fell  over  this  chair 
crying  of  God  to  you  because  you  pushed  me.  You  are  after 
me,  Lord — you  have  been  after  me  since  I  was  a  boy.  Lord, 
I  will,  I  will,  I  will." 

Then  God  said  to  him,  "Look  at  the  vase.  That  is  the 
costliest  thing  in  your  house  isn't  it,  broken  to  wake  you  up? 
Well,  I  broke  the  costliest  prize  of  heaven  for  your  salvation. 
I  gave  my  best  for  you." 

Nesbitt  saw  it  all  in  a  flash,  and  continued  to  say,  "Lord,  I 
will,  I  will.  I've  resisted  your  best  offers  but  at  last  I  will. 
I'll  quit  the  sin  that  made  you  suffer,  and  your  Blood  pays. 
I  count  it  done." 

Yes,  the  old  days  were  over.  Nesbitt  left  the  old  war-path 
of  sin. 

Will  you  leave  it?  Will  you?  Take  one  look  at  all  its  wages 
of  death  and  hell  and  leave  it,  my  friend.  Will  you?  Jesus 
is  the  way  out  of  sin. 


"WILD  OATS" 


"Be  not  deceived;  God  is  not  mocked:  for  whatsoever  a  man 
soweth,  that  shall  he  also  reap.  For  he  that  soweth  to  his 
flesh  shall  of  the  flesh  reap  corruption;  but  he  that  soweth  to 
the  Spirit  shall  of  the  Spirit  reap  life  everlasting.  And  let  us 
not  be  weary  in  well  doing,  for  in  due  season  we  shall  reap, 
if  we  faint  not,"  Gal.  6:7-9. 

So  many  times  we  talk  about  this  first  verse:  "As  a  man 
soweth,  that  shall  he  also  reap/'  but  that  does  not  mean 
enough  unless  you  take  the  next  verse,  which  states  that  the 
man  who  sows  to  his  flesh  shall  of  the  flesh  reap  corruption, 
and  the  man  who  sows  to  the  Spirit  shall  of  the  Spirit  reap 
life  everlasting. 

There  is  the  flesh — we  are  all  dead  sure  of  that — but,  thank 
God,  there  is  a  Spirit.  Man  isn't  conscious  of  it  until  God 
comes  around  and  whispers  into  his  heart.  The  Word  of  God 
is  able  to  divide  between  soul  and  spirit  and  between  spirit 
and  flesh,  and  let  a  man  know  where  he  is  sowing. 

If  God  could  pull  back  the  curtain  to-night  and  give  us  a 
glimpse  of  the  spirit  world,  all  our  life  would  be  changed  in 
a  moment.  We  would  never  think  the  same  again.  We  would 
never  be  the  same  kind  of  folks  if  God  were  to  take  the  lid  off 
Hades  to-night ;  show  us  Dives,  of  whom  Jesus  spoke.  It  was 
torment  then;  it  is  torment  now.  But  that  is  not  hell;  it  is 
a  place  where  the  wicked  are  waiting.  The  souls  of  the  saints, 
those  who  are  born  of  Jesus  Christ,  thank  God,  they  went  up. 
Paul  says,  "To  be  absent  from  the  body  is  to  be  present  with 
the  Lord." 

The  Under  World 
Those  outside  of  Jesus  Christ  are  yonder  in  Hades  to-night. 
They  have  their  mentality;  they  have  their  individuality. 
Dives,  looking  across  the  gulf,  saw  Lazarus  and  knew  him  as 
Lazarus.  He  talked  to  Abraham  as  a  person,  and  Abraham 
talked  back  to  him.  He  remembered  his  life  on  this  earth,  and 


32 


SERMONS  BY  PAUL  RADER 


said  to  Abraham :  "If  you  cannot  come  over  here  and  do  some- 
thing for  me,  send  back  and  do  something  for  my  brethren." 

If  God  to-night  would  take  the  lid  off  Hades,  your  life 
would  never  be  the  same.  You  would  get  away  from  the 
things  of  the  flesh  and  sow  to  the  Spirit;  you  would  let  God 
come  in  and  fill  your  spirit.  You  would  see  that  that  spirit  of 
yours  is  going  to  live  somewhere  forever.  If  death  ends  it  all, 
what  would  be  the  use  of  preaching  to  you?  It  would  be  use- 
less. Oh,  in  this  world  we  may  have  persecution,  but,  praise 
God,  it  will  all  be  over  before  long  and  we  will  go  sailing  up, 
to  be  with  God  and  to  be  with  Jesus  forever. 

If  God  would  take  the  lid  off  and  let  you  see  heaven  to- 
night, my  friend,  you  might  think  you  would  fly  for  that,  but 
I  doubt  if  you  would,  if  you  do  not  belong  to  Jesus.  I  may 
declare  Jesus  Christ  in  all  His  beauty,  I  may  tell  you  of  the 
magnificent  gifts  in  Christ,  but  you  say,  "Oh,  the  preacher 
sees  it,  but  I  don't.  Give  me  something  I  can  see.  Give  me 
the  money  in  my  hand.  Give  me  the  pleasure  I  can  draw  to- 
day— this  week — that  is  enough.  What  I  can  see — that  is 
what  I  will  take." 

Unveil  Heaven 

If  God  were  to  unveil  heaven,  every  last  man  and  woman 
outside  of  Jesus  Christ  in  this  place  would  be  on  their  faces — 
crying  out  to  hide  themselves  from  the  face  of  Jesus  Christ 
who  sits  on  the  throne. 

There  is  a  spiritual  world.  "God  is  a  Spirit,  and  they  that 
worship  Him  must  worship  Him  in  spirit  and  in  truth."  God 
is  trying  to  open  your  eyes  to  the  fact  that  this  old  body  of 
yours  has  corruption  in  it;  this  flesh  of  yours  is  doomed  to 
corruption;  and  Jesus  Christ  has  come  to  redeem  your  soul 
and  change  these  vile  bodies  of  ours  and  has  offered  us  a 
marvelous  salvation  that  affects  our  body,  and  affects  our 
spirit,  and  our  soul.  He  takes  us,  spirit,  soul  and  body,  and 
transforms  us  by  His  own  power. 

His  Life 

I  am  in  this  pulpit  to-night  because  I  had  a  father  who 
was  a  person  and  a  mother  who  was  a  person,  and  those  two 


"WILD  OATS" 


33 


gave  to  me  by  the  process  of  birth  a  personality.  I  am  here 
with  a  face  like  my  father's,  some  characteristics  of  my  moth- 
er, and  because  they  lived  I  am  here  to-night,  my  flesh  walking 
the  earth.  My  friend,  if  you  ever  get  to  walk  around  heaven, 
it  will  be  because  you  met  Jesus  Christ  and  He  put  His  Spirit 
into  you.   His  life,  His  life  alone,  can  save,  and  it  is  a  gift. 

So  God  says  if  you  sow  to  the  flesh  you  shall  of  the  flesh 
reap  corruption.  Some  man  says  to  me,  "Mr.  Rader,  why  is 
this  thing  harmful,  why  is  that  thing  harmful  ?"  It  sows  to  the 
flesh,  it  only  enhances  the  flesh.  I  can  afford  to  go  with  a 
beaten  back,  I  can  afford  to  go  with  my  face  pounded  into  a 
jelly  by  persecution,  I  can  afford  to  starve,  to  go  without  any- 
thing decent  to  wear,  to  be  called  the  off-scouring  of  the  world 
— but  at  the  end,  praise  God,  I  can  be  changed  in  a  moment  by 
Jesus  Christ,  and  through  eternity  be  His,  in  bliss,  complete 
and  new.  I  can  afford  to  suffer  persecution  but  I  cannot  af- 
ford, I  cannot  afford — hear  me — I  cannot  afford — not  to  find 
Jesus  and  let  Him  make  my  soul  alive.  I  must  sow  to  the 
Spirit. 

"Take  the  world,  but  give  me  Jesus, 

All  its  joys  are  but  a  name; 
But  His  love  abideth  ever, 

Through  eternal  years  the  same." 

Oh,  friend,  swap  to-night.  Take  whatsoever  may  come 
in  this  life,  but  make  dead  sure  that  Jesus  has  come  into  your 
heart  and  changed  your  life;  and  if  you  sow  to  the  Spirit  you 
will  reap  everlasting  life.   You  will  have  life — you  surely  will. 

I  have  seen  fellows  come  into  a  training  camp,  supposed  to 
be  athletes — fat,  their  eyes  pudgy,  living  a  dissipated  life. 
And  then  I  have  seen  them  begin  to  work  and  to  train.  You 
say,  "Better  let  them  alone;  they  are  in  such  poor  condition, 
so  out  of  shape,  you  better  put  them  to  bed."  But  they  begin 
to  train,  and  they  begin  to  change,  and  new  life  comes  to  them : 
new  vim,  new  punch,  new  energy.  They  couldn't  run  a  mile 
when  they  tried  it  the  first  time;  now  they  can  hit  it  at 
a  pretty  good  pace,  and  walk  and  dog-trot  five  miles  and 
sprint  at  the  end,  and  the  muscles  show  through  their  skin, 


34 


SERMONS  BY  PAUL  RADER 


and  the  fat  goes;  they  come  forth  with  a  new  kind  of  life, 
and  here  is  the  point.    They  are  very  conscious  of  this  life. 

New  Life 

And  Jesus  says  that  the  man  who  tries  to  seek  Him,  who 
puts  out  his  soul  after  Jesus  Christ,  praise  God,  Christ  will 
manifest  Himself  to  him  in  life.  If  you  sow  to  the  flesh, 
you  will  of  the  flesh  reap  corruption.  As  a  man  goes  on 
developing  his  body,  he  knows  that  added  strength  is  coming 
to  him;  knows  what  his  appetite  has  come  to  be,  what  refresh- 
ing sleep  comes.  The  other  fellows  come  around,  ask  him 
how  he  feels:  UI  feel  fine."  What  has  come  to  him?  New  life. 
What  was  the  other?  Corruption. 

Now  he  feels  life,  vigor,  in  every  part  of  his  body.  Does 
he  know  it?  Sure,  he  knows  it.  Does  he  feel  it?  Sure,  he 
feels  it.  Do  other  people  see  it?  Sure,  other  people  see  it. 
And  I  say  to  you,  my  friends,  the  man  that  touches  Jesus 
Christ  has  gotten  right  at  the  very  fountain  of  life.  Will  he 
feel  it?  Sure,  he  will  feel  it.  Will  he  know  it?  Sure,  he 
will  know  it.  Will  other  folks  know  it?  Sure,  they  will 
know  it.  Will  the  devil  know  it?  I  should  say  he  would.  He 
will  roll  on  his  back  and  say,  "Where  did  that  fellow  get  that 
kick?" 

In  the  Strength  of  Another 
Oh,  it  wasn't  his.  He  sipped  it  out  of  the  cup  of  salvation, 
and  is  going  out  to  battle  the  devil  in  the  strength  of  Another, 
in  the  name  of  Jesus.  Thank  God,  a  good  many  of  us  are 
here  because  we  escaped  from  the  devil ;  J esus  gave  the  victory, 
Jesus  gave  the  power.  We  stopped  sowing  wild  oats,  stopped 
sowing  to  the  flesh,  and  sowed  a  big  yes  to  the  Spirit.  We 
did  not  know  how  the  life  came;  neither  die!  the  athlete  know 
how  muscular  life  was  added.  Little  by  little  his  muscles  came 
— but  we  didn't  get  it  little  by  little.  We  opened  our  mouth 
and  got  it  all  in  a  gulp,  and  the  old  habits  and  the  old  life  and 
the  old  gang  went  out,  and  Jesus  started  His  work  on  our  old 
constitutions  and  old  souls  and  old  brains.  His  Spirit  wit- 
nessed right  away  with  our  spirits  that  we  were  the  children  of 
God.    Do  we  know  we  have  Him?    Thank  God,  I  should  say 


"WILD  OATS" 


35 


we  do.  Oh,  you  can  afford,  friend,  to  go  without  everything 
else,  but  you  cannot  afford  to  go  without  Jesus  Christ.  He 
is  life,  life.    Say  a  big  yes  to  His  Spirit's  pleading  to-night. 

There  was  that  poor  woman  at  the  well,  the  poor  old  sinner 
— she  was  pitiful.  My,  she  certainly  had  a  reputation  around 
her  little  village;  and  Jesus  had  her  number.  He  said  to  her: 
"Go  call  your  husband."  Wasn't  that  sweet  in  Him?  He 
knows  how  to  get  it  out,  the  whole  story.  He  just  says, 
"Call  your  husband." 

"I  haven't  any  husband." 

"Yes,  that  is  right,  you  told  the  truth,  my  dear  woman, 
you  have  had  seven  husbands,  and  the  one  you  have  now  is 
not  your  husband."  And  in  a  moment  the  whole  door  was 
opened  and  she  saw  that  her  whole  life  was  sown  to  the  flesh. 
In  a  moment  she  had  a  look  at  the  rottenness  of  flesh,  of  what 
it  meant  to  be  without  God.  Oh,  the  flesh  smells  to  heaven, 
but  the  Spirit  of  God  gives  life. 

Without  Everlasting  Life 

Take  a  steer  and  stab  him  and  leave  him  out  in  the  pasture, 
and  he  may  not  smell  very  bad  to-day,  but  to-morrow  it  will 
begin  to  come,  and  the  next  day  it  is  worse.  Why?  There 
is  no  life  in  it.  The  life  has  gone  out  of  him.  Listen:  You 
are  a  stabbed  steer  without  Jesus  Christ.  You  may  not  smell 
to  heaven  to-day.  You  may  say,  "I'm  living  a  pretty  good 
life,"  but  to-morrow  the  stink  will  go  up  to  heaven  forever. 
It  is  flesh  and  it  is  filled  with  corruption.  There  is  no  life  in 
you  until  you  find  Jesus.  "He  that  soweth  to  the  flesh  shall  of 
the  flesh  reap  corruption."  The  man  who  sows  to  the  Spirit 
takes  Jesus  in,  bless  God,  he  kicks  up  his  heels  and  runs 
through  life's  pastures,  and  he  is  a  mighty  live  one,  I  tell  you. 

God  help  you  to-night  to  have  the  glory  of  His  life  within 
you.  It  is  not  a  theory,  it  is  the  personal  life  of  Jesus  Christ 
coming  into  your  heart.  Man,  God  doesn't  care  what  your  sin 
has  been,  Jesus  doesn't  care  whether  it  has  been  big  or  little, 
flesh  is  slated  for  corruption;  we  are  born  in  sin,  by  our  very 
nature.  Why?  Because  "we  have  turned  every  one  to  his 
own  way,"  the  flesh  way.    Take  a  steer  and  rope  him,  and  pull 


36 


SERMONS  BY  PAUL  RADER 


the  knot  up  tight  around  his  neck,  and  give  it  a  good  twist, 
and  somebody  will  come  up  and  say:  "Isn't  he  a  good  steer?" 
"Yes,  a  perfectly  good  steer — but  he  is  going  to  die  right 
away."  His  wind  is  choked  off;  he  has  to  have  wind  to  live. 
The  man  or  woman  who  shuts  Jesus  Christ  out  of  his  life  is 
just  as  big  a  fool  as  he  would  be  if  he  tied  a  rope  around  his 
neck  and  shut  the  air  from  his  lungs. 

Samson 

Samson  sowed  to  the  flesh.  God  made  a  wonderful  cov- 
enant with  him,  and  Samson  made  his  promise  to  God.  God 
was  his  strength,  not  himself.  God  let  men  like  Samson  loom 
up  in  the  Bible  just  so  you  may  see  it  was  all  God.  It  wasn't 
Samson.  If  you  get  an  artist's  picture  of  Samson,  the  strong 
man,  it  will  be  a  man  about  eight  feet  tall  with  big  muscles  on 
him,  a  great  big  pair  of  calves  and  thighs,  and  a  great  big 
knotty  back.  Listen :  There  is  not  a  thing  in  the  Book  of  God 
to  substantiate  it.  They  searched  old  Samson,  they  even  put 
detectives  on  his  trail,  they  tried  to  trap  him  in  a  room  where 
somebody  could  get  the  secret  out  of  him.  There  wasn't  a 
thing  about  him  to  show  where  his  strength  lay.  They  all  said, 
"Where  does  he  get  it?  What  is  the  trick?  What  is  the 
combination?"  They  looked  at  his  arms  and  said,  "It  isn't 
there.  He  is  a  little  man,  nothing  to  him  at  all.  How  did 
he  carry  off  those  gates?" 

An  Example 

My  friends,  God  put  Samson  there  as  an  example  to  you 
and  me.  I  don't  care  how  weak  you  may  be  to-night,  you  can 
take  the  devil's  gates  and  carry  them  to  the  ends  of  the 
earth,  with  Jesus  Christ  in  your  heart.  The  devil  can  put  up 
a  little  bit  of  a  perfumed  bunch  of  nothing  and  take  you  off 
after  him  if  you  sow  to  the  flesh,  but  with  Jesus  Christ  in 
your  heart  the  victory  is  yours,  and  you  can  beat  the  devil. 

Samson's  strength  was  in  God  and  the  keeping  of  his  vow. 
Samson  had  made  his  covenant  with  God;  he  was  a  separated 
man;  they  all  knew  he  was  a  Nazarene.  His  hair  was  long 
and  had  never  had  a  razor  on  it.    "But,"  they  said,  "there  is 


"WILD  OATS" 


37 


no  strength  in  hair."  Certainly  there  wasn't.  Some  big  dunces 
in  our  day  grow  a  lot  of  long  hair  and  think  there  is  strength 
in  it,  but  you  can  grow  hair  a  mile  long  and  you  would  be 
as  weak  as  you  are  now.  A  bald-headed  man  has  as  much 
chance  as  Samson  had.  It  wasn't  his  hair,  it  was  in  the  fact 
that  he  had  the  covenant  with  God,  and  as  long  as  he  kept 
his  vow  with  God,  God  kept  His  vow  with  Samson  and  his 
strength  never  left  him  until  he  broke  that  vow. 

Take  Heed  Lest  We  Fall 

Finally  they  had  him  down,  in  temptation,  there  in  the  lap 
of  Delilah — sowing  to  the  flesh.  He  thought  he  was  somebody. 
Oh,  how  the  devil  gets  folks  to  thinking  they  are  somebody. 
I  tell  you,  it  is  a  good  thing  for  some  of  you  Christians  to 
have  a  place  to  look  back  to,  where  God  took  you  out.  It  will 
keep  you  from  getting  the  big  head.  It  is  by  nothing  a  man 
can  do — it  is  simply  by  trusting  Jesus;  Jesus  does  the  work, 
and,  praise  God,  you  will  reap  if  Jesus  Christ  is  in  your  life. 

Now  Samson  is  feeding  to  the  flesh — thinking  he  is  some- 
body. And  all  the  Philistines  wanted  to  know  the  secret. 
Samson  said,  "All  I  have  to  do  is  to  just  stretch  up  and  go 
out  and  kill  them;  the  power  of  the  Lord  comes  on  me  and 
I  slay  them."  "But  Samson,  where  is  your  strength?"  So 
they  finally  drive  Delilah  into  it;  they  say,  "You  try  to  help 
us;  you  get  the  secret  from  him."  He  is  in  sin,  feeding  on 
the  flesh. 

Delilah  says,  "Samson,  you  tell  me  about  it."  Samson  lied 
to  her.  He  said,  "I  tell  you  what  you  do.  You  get  seven  little 
green  withes  that  had  never  been  dried  and  she  bound  him. 
Then  shall  I  be  weak  and  be  as  another  man." 

Then  the  lord  of  the  Philistines  brought  up  to  her  seven 
green  withes  that  had  never  been  dried  and  she  bound  him 
with  them.  Then  she  said,  "Samson,  the  Philistines  are  upon 
you!"  Snap!  went  the  bandages,  like  strings  that  had  been 
burnt.    So  his  strength  was  not  yet  known. 


38 


SERMONS  BY  PAUL  RADER 


Playing  With  Fire 
Samson  kept  on  lying  to  her — but  all  the  time  he  was  play- 
ing with  fire.  Think  of  it!  in  the  lap  of  a  woman,  playing 
with  that  secret  between  him  and  heaven,  that  vow  that  was 
between  his  father  and  his  mother  and  himself  and  God — 
playing  with  it,  fooling  with  it.  Sowing  to  the  flesh.  Sowing 
wild  oats. 

Let  me  tell  you,  some  of  you  young  people:  if  you  made 
your  covenant  with  Jesus  Christ  to  keep  out  of  the  world, 
God  help  you;  don't  flirt  with  the  amusements  of  your  day. 
Don't  say  to  yourself,  "Oh,  I  can  forget  it,  I  can  get  forgive- 
ness." Oh,  the  men  and  the  women  I  know  to-night  who  have 
been  plunged  into  the  depths  of  despair,  who  have  fooled 
with  God.  "God  is  not  mocked" — hear  me!  You  may  think 
you  are  getting  by  God,  but  God  runs  the  world  and  brings 
this  old  earth  of  ours  around  on  a  second  of  time,  and  God  is 
longsuffering  to  us-ward,  but  God  never  will  be  mocked. 

Listen  to  me,  some  of  you  young  fellows  that  think  you  are 
getting  by:  God  will  not  be  mocked.  "As  a  man  soweth,  that 
shall  he  also  reap." 

Paying  To-day 
You  young  bucks  in  here  to-night,  God  pity  your  poor  soul 
that  is  on  its  way  to  hell,  besmirched  by  sin.  God  help  you 
to  get  out  of  sin.  "The  man  that  sows  to  the  flesh  shall  of  the 
flesh  reap  corruption" — get  that  into  your  brain.  Oh,  how  I 
hunger  for  the  souls  of  some  of  you  young  fellows.  Praise 
God,  He  will  heal  your  body,  and  heal  your  soul,  and  set  you 
going  for  God  as  you  keep  close  to  Him,  and  He  will  keep 
close  to  you.  Listen :  The  biggest  delusion  abroad  in  the  land 
to-day  is  this:  that  you  think  you  won't  pay.  We  are  paying 
to-day  in  churches  for  the  doubts  of  preachers.  We  are  pay- 
ing to-day  for  the  mothers'  and  the  fathers'  sins  in  a  genera- 
tion of  amusement-mad  young  folks  in  high  society,  low 
society,  in  the  young  high  school  life  to-day,  in  the  awful  con- 
ditions of  sin  among  young  men  and  young  women.  You 
either  let  Jesus  pay,  or  you  will  pay.  Oh,  if  my  children 
had  to  pay  to-night  for  my  sin,  I  would  die — but,  praise  God„ 


"WILD  OATS" 


39 


I  plunged  beneath  the  crimson  flood,  and  He  has  washed  me 
white  as  snow!    You  may  be  washed. 

Will  the  Hair  Grow? 
Poor  old  fool  Samson — daring  to  carry  that  precious  secret 
around  in  the  lap  of  Delilah.  But  he  paid,  and  paid  hard. 
Finally  she  said  to  him,  "You  don't  love  me."  How  many 
men  have  gone  to  hell  over  that  statement !  "If  you  love  me, 
you  would  do  this,  you  would  do  that."  If  you  ever  really 
love  you  would  stand  up  and  praise  Jesus,  and  stick  by  the 
Lord.  No  woman  can  have  a  higher  love  than  the  love  a  man 
gives  her  when  he  is  true  to  Jesus.  The  love  of  a  Christian 
man,  or  a  Christian  woman,  who  really  knows  God  and  has 
Jesus  in  his  body,  is  about  as  fine  a  thing  as  you  can  get  on 
this  earth. 

Poor  old  Samson  ducked  and  went  down  under  the  plead- 
ings of  this  woman,  and  he  said:  "All  right,  I  will  give  you 
the  secret.  I'll  get  my  hair  back  some  way.  Fll  take  vacation, 
go  down  to  Hot  Springs  and  stay  there  a  year,  and  my  hair 
will  grow  out." 

So  she  gets  a  pair  of  scissors  and  cuts  off  his  hair,  and  then 
cries:  "Samson,  the  Philistines  are  upon  you!"  And  Samson 
says,  "What  do  I  care?  All  I  have  to  do  is  to  shake  my- 
self. I'm  the  same  big  man."  No,  sir,  now  he  is  the  little  old 
weazened  Samson;  and  they  come  on  and  bind  him  like  a 
kitten. 

Satan  Binds 

Outside  of  Jesus  Christ  the  devil  can  bind  any  one  of  you 
to-night.  I  don't  care  what  your  character  is,  the  devil  knows 
what  you  want,  and  he  mixes  the  dish  to  suit  you  and  lets  the 
aroma  come  up  into  your  nostrils  and  the  color  come  into  your 
eye,  just  to  suit  you — and  he  gets  you,  too.  Don't  tell  me — I 
have  lived  too  long;  I  am  a  kitten  nine  days  old,  and  I  have 
my  eyes  open  and  know  some  of  you;  the  best  thing  you  can 
do  is  to  confess  your  sin  and  know  that  outside  of  Jesus 
Christ  the  devil  has  you  traveling  straight  to  corruption  and 
hell. 


40 


SERMONS  BY  PAUL  RADER 


Samson  went  down.  Look  at  old  Elijah — they  tried  to  hurt 
him,  but  he  stuck.  He  got  down  on  his  knees  and  he  talked  to 
God,  and  God  talked  to  him,  and  when  all  the  prophets  of  Baal 
came  up  against  him  Elijah  could  reach  his  little  puny  with- 
ered hand  of  a  man  up  into  glory  and  get  the  fire  of  God  and 
pull  it  down  on  the  sacrifice. 

Miracles 

And  I  believe  that  is  what  Elijah  did — I  believe  in  the  mir- 
acles of  the  Bible,  thank  God.  Do  you  know  why?  Because  I 
have  had  one  of  the  biggest  miracles  in  the  world  happen  right 
under  these  ribs.  Yes,  sir,  I  know  there  has  been  a  new  fel- 
low put  in  there — you  cannot  beat  that  for  a  miracle.  Jesus 
has  put  new  life  in  my  heart;  and  when  He  can  change  your 
life  and  your  heart,  bless  God,  He  can  certainly  handle  a 
hundred  worlds.  And,  oh,  when  you  have  been  wasned  by  the 
Blood,  then  you  can  pray;  then  you  have  a  right  to  come 
into  the  presence  of  God;  and  you  feel  it,  and  the  Holy  Spirit 
urges  you  to  come  boldly.  I  say  to  you  to-night,  I  do  not 
know  a  man  under  God's  heaven  who  can  pray  to  God  who 
does  not  believe  in  the  atoning  Blood  of  Jesus  Christ.  He 
cannot  do  it.    He  cannot  get  into  God's  presence. 

"Christ  Died  for  the  Ungodly" 
Friends,  there  is  nothing  so  disgusting  to  God  as  this  idea 
in  our  age  of  talking  about  the  spark  of  divinity  in  a  man, 
saying  that  sin  is  only  an  accident,  and  that  he  does  not  have 
to  get  rid  of  sin  to  come  into  God's  presence;  that  God  put  us 
into  the  world,  therefore  God  will  put  us  into  heaven.  Lis- 
ten: We  are  by  nature  in  sin,  and  God  says  we  are  rebels. 
God  has  a  plan  in  Jesus  Christ;  God  help  you  to  take  Him 
to-night — just  as  you  are,  without  one  plea. 

The  Sheriff 

There  was  a  man  in  one  of  our  tent  meetings — a  fellow  who 
was  a  very  wicked  man  in  the  town;  he  had  been  sheriff  in 


"WILD  OATS 


41 


the  county.  He  came  to  the  services  night  after  night,  and 
I  had  talked  to  him  once  or  twice.  He  said,  "Mr.  Rader,  I 
have  led  a  pretty  good  life;  I  never  cheated  anybody  here." 
But  I  just  went  on  preaching  about  what  Jesus  was.  I 
preached  a  sermon  about  Nicodemus — tried  to  show  what  a 
good  man  Nicodemus  was,  but  how  Jesus  said  to  Nicodemus 
when  he  came  to  him  that  dark  night,  "Except  ye  be  born 
again,  ye  cannot  see  the  kingdom  of  God."  We  looked  for  a 
closing  moment  into  the  Garden  of  Gethsemane,  where  Jesus 
shed  drops  of  blood,  down  on  His  knees  with  His  poor  elbows 
on  the  rock,  crying  to  God:  "Oh,  God,  if  there  be  any 
other  way,  allow  this  cup  to  pass  from  me!"  A  deathless 
Christ — a  sinless  Christ — a  spotless  Christ — yet  He  must  go 
into  the  agonies  of  death — what  for?  Oh,  man,  in  God's 
name,  how  dare  you  stand  there  and  say  to  God  there  is  an- 
other way,  to  dare  walk  out  of  that  pew  and  say  you  are  saved 
by  your  own  work? 

And  this  poor  fellow  saw  it  for  the  first  time  in  his  life. 
I  had  not  finished  my  sermon  when  he  pushed  back  his  chair 
and  with  the  sweat  dripping  from  his  brow  said :  "Mr.  Rader, 
let  me  come  now,  let  me  come  now."  He  turned  around  to  the 
little  audience,  and  said:  "Oh,  folks,  if  ever  there  was  a 
sinner,  I  am  a  sinner" — and  he  dropped  at  the  altar,  and,  lift- 
ing his  hands  to  God,  said:  "I  take  Jesus  as  my  Saviour — 
poor  lost  man  that  I  am."  And  his  poor,  haughty  wife  there 
lifted  her  veil  and  put  it  back  over  her  hat  and  witli  her  hand- 
kerchief in  her  hand  and  the  tears  streaming  down  she  put 
her  arms  around  him  and  said,  "Oh,  I  am  with  you,  I  am 
with  you." 

"He  that  humbleth  himself  shall  be  exalted."  That  is  the 
way  to  come.  Do  you  dare  to  sow  to  your  flesh — to  say  to- 
night, "I  will  walk  out  of  this  tabernacle  to  make  it  comfort- 
able for  myself.  I  will  not  humble  myself"?  You  will  reap 
corruption,  for  you  sow  to  the  flesh.    God  is  speaking  to  you 


42  SERMONS  BY  PAUL  RADER 


to-night,  God  is  calling  to  you  to-night,  and  if  you  hear  His 
call  and  answer  back  to-night,  you  will  reap  everlasting  life. 

God  is  calling  you  to-night — will  you  come?  I  have  deliv- 
ered my  soul.  I  have  told  you  the  way.  Jesus  has  promised 
you  Himself.  I  dare  you  to  come.  Jesus  will  make  good;  if 
you  sow  to  your  flesh  and  go  out  to  satisfy  yourself,  you  are 
going  into  corruption.    Oh,  take  life,  to-night! 


"PLANTING  AND  PLANNING" 

The  text  will  be  a  few  words  found  in  the  third  verse  of  the 
thirteenth  chapter  of  Matthew : 

"Behold  a  sower  went  forth  to  sow." 

God  has  made  man  and  the  earth  very  close  together.  It 
is  only  lately  that  man's  inventions  have  lifted  him  into  the 
air.  God  made  man  out  of  the  dust  of  the  ground,  and  though 
he  builds  a  sky  scraper  he  still  has  to  go  to  the  soil  for  his 
food.  God  was  the  first  gardener,  and  He  will  be  the  last  gar- 
dener. His  last  act  will  be  to  take  all  the  weeds  out  of  the 
garden  and  let  the  wheat  spring  up.  Mary  supposed  Jesus 
to  be  the  gardener  on  the  morning  of  the  resurrection  and 
what  great  delight  is  ours  to-day  in  knowing  that  He  really 
was.   It  was  all  made  "for  Him  and  by  Him." 

Jesus  the  Truth 

God  gave  us  this  parable  that  we  might  apprehend  what  He 
was  talking  about  when  He  began  to  tell  us  of  the  sowing  of 
truth  in  human  soil.  Jesus  said,  "I  AM  THE  TRUTH."  Not 
only  what  Jesus  said  was  the  truth,  but  Jesus  Himself  is  the 
Truth,  and  every  outcropping  of  His  life  is  connected  with 
the  Truth;  every  promise  of  God  has  to  do  with  the  Truth, 
and  runs  back  into  Jesus. 

Vine  and  Fruit 

The  vine  sheds  forth  the  blossom  and  the  blossom  brings 
forth  the  fruit,  but  the  fruit  and  the  blossom  and  the  leaf  and 
the  branch  are  all  connected  with  the  vine.  So  all  the  truth 
is  in  Christ  Jesus,  and  every  promise  of  God  must  be  amen  in 
Christ  Jesus.  Every  bit  of  fruit  is  amen  in  the  vine,  and 
without  the  vine  there  is  no  fruit.  Without  Jesus  Christ  there 
is  no  promise.  Without  Him  there  is  no  fulfillment  of  any 
of  the  plan  of  God. 


44 


SERMONS  BY  PAUL  RADER 


Now  in  order  for  God  to  have  His  plan,  He  must  plant,  and 
He  must  plant  that  which  held  His  plan — Jesus.  He  wants 
not  to  plant  a  doctrine  in  your  heart,  alone,  but  praise  God 
He  comes  to  plant  Jesus  Himself  that  the  life  of  Jesus  might 
bring  forth  fruit  in  your  heart. 

So  the  sower,  He  says,  goes  forth  to  sow.  Here  in  the  hu- 
man heart  is  the  soil  and  there  in  the  glory  was  the  Seed.  It 
came  to  earth  in  human  form  to  reach  the  soil,  and  He  throws 
it  and  casts  it  forth  into  the  soil,  and  if  the  soil  will  but  open 
up  and  take  it  in,  it  does  the  work  and  brings  forth  a  hun- 
dredfold— less  or  more.  Christ  gives  the  picture  of  the  hu- 
man heart  as  the  soil,  where  the  Truth  may  be  planted,  and  He 
says  it  depends  upon  the  condition  of  your  heart  as  to  wheth- 
er you  will  take  it  up  or  not.  He  has  sown  life  in  the  world, 
and  it  depends  upon  the  world  whether  they  will  take  Jesus 
or  not.  The  Jews,  with  stony  hearts,  not  only  cast  Him  out 
but  tried  to  crush  the  seed  that  God  wished  to  sow.  They 
bruised  it,  and  it  went  into  the  ground,  but  praise  God  it 
sprung  up  again  and  Jesus  came  forth  into  life  and  is  now 
seated  in  the  glory. 

Seed  and  Soil 

Now  God  says  it  takes  good  soil  to  produce  good  crops. 
There  is  one  thing  in  the  seed;  there  is  another  thing  in  the 
soil.  For  a  long  time  the  American  government  experimented 
with  seed  out  in  the  Western  country.  They  tried  their  best 
to  get  seed  that  would  live  in  an  arid  country,  and  experi- 
mented entirely  with  seed,  seed  from  other  dry  places  in  the 
world,  that  could  stand  the  dryness  of  the  western  climate. 
The  condition  of  the  soil  was  considered  a  secondary  matter. 

Finally  one  of  these  Western  fellows,  a  peculiar  sort  of  a 
man,  a  "poor  rube"  he  called  himself,  while  he  was  in  the  city 
one  day  stuck  a  piece  of  loaf  sugar  in  his  coffee.  He  only  put 
the  end  of  it  in,  but  the  coffee  came  up  into  the  loaf  of 
sugar,  and  he  said  to  himself,  "Where  is  the  power  that  draws 
the  coffee  into  this  sugar?  I  am  holding  this  loaf  of  sugar 
above  the  coffee.  I  can  put  my  bucket  above  the  well  but  the 
water  doesn't  jump  up  into  it."    And  immediately  he  had  an 


"PLANTING  AND  PLANNING' 


45 


idea.  He  said  to  himself,  "Now  I  know  why  my  land  goes 
dry,  It  is  because  there  are  clods  in  it  that  pull  up  the 
moisture  from  the  soil,  just  like  this  loaf  of  sugar  pulls  up 
the  coffee  and  then  the  wind  gets  a  chance  at  it,  and  fans  it 
out."  He  put  some  pulverized  sugar  in  the  coffee,  and  it 
floated  on  the  top.  "Now,"  he  says,  "I  know  what  I  will  do. 
I  will  go  home  and  pulverize  my  land."  So  he  put  a  drag 
on  it  and  a  harrow  on  it,  and  pulverized  it,  then  he  planted 
his  seed,  and  pulverized  it  again,  and  found  out  that  when  he 
knocked  out  the  clods  and  smoothed  it  down  the  wind  could 
not  get  at  the  moisture  to  dry  it  out.  The  farmers  all  found 
it  paid  to  prepare  the  soil  for  the  seed. 

The  United  States  government  experiments  to  find  out 
what  the  different  soils  contain.  All  good  soil  I  understand 
contains  phosphorus,  lime,  nitrogen  and  potash,  and  if  any  of 
these  elements  fall  below  their  proper  percentage  the  soil  does 
not  produce  the  crop  as  it  should.  Therefore  a  system  has 
been  adopted  to  put  something  into  the  soil  that  will  yield 
back  the  crop.  The  farmer  had  taken  three  crops  off  his 
farm  and  put  nothing  back,  and  the  result  was  that  it  pro- 
duced less  and  less  crop. 

A  Heaet  Change 
God  knew  that  the  greatest  thing  heaven  had,  the  best 
Christ  could  give,  all  the  truth  that  heaven  could  give,  could 
never  take  root  in  a  human  heart  unless  God  changed  that 
heart  and  praise  God,  heaven  by  His  own  decree  demands  that 
a  man  be  born  again  before  he  can  raise  a  crop.  This  idea 
of  thinking  that  in  a  poor  sinful  soil,  besmirched  by  iniquity 
and  led  of  the  devil,  somehow  a  man  can  raise  a  holy  crop,  is 
an  infamous  lie.  The  greatest  enemy  to  a  real  new  birth  is 
churchianity  to-day.  I  mean  simply  joining  some  organiza- 
tion. Men  do  not  believe  what  J esus  taught,  namely :  a 
change  of  heart,  a  heart  change  that  makes  Jesus  Master. 
There  are  Christian  people  fighting  the  reception  of  the  Holy 
Ghost  also;  there  are  Christian  men  and  women  who  will  not 
entirely  break  before  God — then  wonder  why  they  cannot 
raise  a  hundredfold  crop.   God  can  never  raise  a  crop  in  your 


46 


SERMONS  BY  PAUL  RADER 


life  until  He  breaks  down  the  hard  places  in  your  life;  the 
clods  in  the  soil  must  go.  Let  pride  be  there,  and  you  will 
find  that  it  is  a  clod,  swept  by  a  wind  that  will  sap  every  bit 
of  your  spiritual  power.  You  would  not  talk  to  the  person 
across  the  aisle  from  you  in  the  street  car — pride  is  boss.  You 
would  not  come  to  a  street  meeting — pride  is  boss.  Do  you 
know  the  truth?  Yes,  but  there  is  a  change  that  is  necessary 
in  your  heart  before  truth  and  faith  will  mix,  and  until  God 
gets  the  consent  of  your  life  that  the  soil  of  your  life  may  be 
pulverized,  and  yielded  in  humility  before  Him,  He  cannot 
produce  the  crop. 

God's  Pulverizing  Plan 
So  God  wants  to  plant,  but  God's  plan,  my  friend,  is  the 
plan  of  sanctification,  when  it  comes  to  crop  raising.  God 
wants  your  body  to  be  given  to  Him  a  living  sacrifice.  Friends, 
I  say  to  you,  it  is  a  delightful  experience,  but  all  the  joys  of 
crop  raising  cannot  come  to  you  until  first  of  all  God's  plan 
of  pulverizing  your  heart  comes.  God  must  let  you  go  through 
the  rough  experience  of  having  no  crop,  of  seeing  your  efforts 
come  to  naught,  and  when  He  gets  you  to  that  place,  you  cry 
out,  "Oh  Lord,  why  can't  I  raise  the  crop?" — and  through 
some  little  bit  of  a  thing,  just  as  tb a  t  farmer  found  out  what 
was  the  trouble  with  his  land,  God  will  show  you  through  the 
reading  of  His  Word,  through  some  crisis,  through  your  very 
failure,  that  you  need  a  deep  heart  work  that  has  never  taken 
place  in  your  life.  You  need  a  breaking  crisis,  an  experience 
before  God,  that  God's  power  may  come  upon  you  and  lay 
you  low  at  His  feet,  in  humility.  Undone  in  your  self-suffi- 
ciency, then  He  can  trust  you  with  His  power  and  the  crop. 

Striking  Stumps 
Jesus  says  the  sower  went  forth  to  sow,  and  when  the  seed 
fell  into  good  soil  it  would  bring  forth  the  fruit.  You  know 
whether  your  heart  is  good  soil  or  not.  We  know  when  we 
run  up  against  the  stumps  when  we  are  plowing.  You  know 
when  you  strike  an  awful  stump  in  your  disposition  and 
pieces  of  the  harness  fly,  and  "pieces  of  your  mind"  are  freely 


"PLANTING  AND  PLANNING"  47 


given.  No  wonder  God  cannot  raise  a  crop  in  such  a  life 
as  that.  You  know  whether  the  stump,  the  rock,  is  there  just 
now,  and  God  Himself  wants  to  prepare  that  soil.  I  tell 
you,  it  takes  a  great  soul  to  hold  a  great  vision,  and  if  you 
will  look  at  men  and  women  who  have  had  visions  of  God  and 
done  the  work  of  God,  you  will  see  them  point  you  right 
back  to  the  place  where  God  pulverized  their  hearts,  brought 
them  down  low  before  Him,  and  they  saw  they  were  not  to 
plead  for  power,  but  plead  for  soil.  God  gladly  gives  all 
the  power  of  the  Holy  Spirit  to  a  yielded  life.  He  gives  the 
Holy  Spirit  in  His  fullness  to  them  that  obey  Him. 

A  Cut-up  Heart 

God  is  a  wise  gardener,  God  is  a  wonderful  gardener,  and 
He  is  not  foolish  enough  to  think  that  the  soil  that  is  not  pre- 
pared is  going  to  bring  forth  the  crop.  He  says  to  the  man 
that  is  humble,  of  a  contrite  heart — (a  cut-up  heart),  a  heart 
with  the  harrow  gone  over  it,  with  the  roller  gone  over  it — 
'"to  this  man  will  I  look" — to  a  man  who  is  so  susceptible  to 
the  voice  of  God  that  he  goes  down  before  God.  God  can  be- 
gin to  use  your  life,  my  brother,  my  sister,  whenever  you  be- 
gin to  give  your  whole  life  to  Him.  "The  eyes  of  the  Lord 
go  to  and  fro  in  the  whole  earth  to  show  Himself  strong  in 
behalf  of  them  whose  heart  is  perfect  toward  Him."  But  you 
will  find  out  that  when  you  go  into  your  closet  and  shut  the 
•door  and  say  to  Him,  "Lord,  I  came  that  you  might  break  my 
spirit,"  that  there  is  a  drawn  battle  on.  There  are  men  and 
women  here  this  morning  who  can  look  back  over  the  past 
years  and  see  where  God  tried  to  break  them,  but  they  came 
right  up  again — then  came  another  blow — perhaps  right  now 
they  are  in  the  crisis  of  a  blow.  Oh!  let  Him  have  His  way 
now.  Is  God  trying  to  afflict  your  life?  No,  He  wants  only 
to  put  the  plow  in  and  the  harrow  in,  so  that  you  will  say  a 
big  "Yes"  to  Him,  and  be  anything,  go  anywhere,  for  Him; 
yielded  and  fit  for  the  Master's  use ;  clay  in  the  potter's  hand. 

Oh,  you  will  find  out  there  is  a  strong  streak  of  objection  in 
your  nature.  I  used  to  have  a  horse  for  cattle  chasing,  that 
every  time  I  wanted  to  go  one  way,  he  wanted  to  go  another. 


48 


SERMONS  BY  PAUL  RADER 


When  I  had  time  to  ride  that  horse,  I  would  ride  him.  He 
could  stand  a  hard  trip,  but  the  trip  was  about  as  hard  on  me 
as  it  was  on  the  horse.  It  meant  a  battle  every  time  we  came 
to  the  cross  paths, — about  fifteen  minutes  of  bucking  and  lay- 
ing on  the  whip.  That  horse  might  turn  around  and  say, 
"Paul,  I  am  your  horse — ain't  I  your  horse?"  Yes,  he  was  my 
horse,  all  right,  but  he  wouldn't  mind.  I  had  another  little 
horse  that  would  just  wear  himself  right  out  going  just  as  I 
wanted  him  to  go.  Which  horse  would  I  use  when  I  couldn't 
take  a  chance  on  any  kind  of  bucking?  The  answer  is  easy. 
That  little  fellow  was  skinny  all  the  time,  I  rode  him  so  much* 
I  was  sure  of  him. 

Too  Much  Bucking 
You  will  find  out  in  every  church  there  are  some  folks  just 
ridden  to  death;  God  can  use  them,  and  He  can't  take  time  to 
fool  with  some  of  you  buckers.  He  does  not  dare  to  put  you 
at  anytliing.  You  are  full  of  nettles,  and  every  time  God 
goes  to  put  you  anywhere  you  have  so  much  objection,  so 
much  planning,  so  much  bucking,  that  He  cannot  afford  to 
use  you.  I  tell  you,  friends,  God  is  looking  for  men  and  wom- 
en on  whom  He  can  lay  a  burden  without  a  thousand  objec- 
tions. God  help  you  to  get  to  the  place  this  morning  where 
God  can  afford  to  trust  you  with  His  plan.  God  knows  wheth- 
er you  are  yielded  or  not.  It  doesn't  make  any  difference 
how  many  talents  you  have,  or  what  kind  of  a  person  you 
think  you  are,  God  Himself  knows  whether  He  can  use  you, 
and  the  proof  of  your  yieldedness  is  in  raising  the  crop. 

Running  Your  Own  Life? 
Oh,  seek  God's  plan.  The  reason  your  life  hasn't  been 
as  it  should  be  is  because  you  have  had  your  own  plan.  You 
have  seen  the  why  of  failure  in  the  sinner,  but  you  don't  see 
it  in  yourself  as  a  Christian.  You  go  out  and  say  to  the 
sinner,  "My  dear  brother,  you  will  never  be  saved  by  works- — 
you  need  to  be  born  again."  He  could  turn  right  around 
and  say  to  you  as  a  Christian,  "Yes,  and  you  don't  get  along 
any  better."    Why?    You  have  your  own  works.    You  have 


"PLANTING  AND  PLANNING1 


40 


your  own  plan.  You  are  running  your  own  life.  You  have 
the  streaks  and  streaks  of  objections  that  have  never  been 
yielded. 

Here  is  a  mother  who  wants  to  talk  to  her  daughter,  and 
she  knows  that  every  word  she  says  goes  in  one  ear  and  out 
the  other.  Here  is  a  father  who  wants  to  talk  to  his  son,  and 
what  he  says  passes  right  over  him.  You  go  into  a  foreign 
country  and  talk  to  men  and  they  look  at  you  with  blank 
faces.  That  is  the  way  God  feels,  maybe,  in  your  presence. 
God  has  the  mightiest  tilings  in  the  world  to  give  you,  but  you 
cannot  get  it  until  you  give  Him  your  attention,  until  you  be- 
come yielded.  A  man  might  preach  the  holiest  kind  of  call- 
ing on  earth,  lift  up  the  greatest  experiences  possible  for  a 
man  to  have,  but  unless  there  comes  the  breaking  to  a  con- 
gregation, he  will  find  that  even  the  truth  becomes  a  hardener 
of  the  soil,  it  becomes  a  curse  to  us  unless  we  hear  it  with 
humility  and  contrite  hearts.  May  God  cut  our  hearts  now, 
until  all  say  to  Him,  "I  must  know  you,  I  must  have  tender 
ears,  I  must  have  seeing  eyes,  I  must  have  a  heart  that  feels 
God's  voice  and  minds  the  least  thing  He  says." 

Spiritual  Indigestion 

Now  God  says  He  wants  to  sow  the  truth  in  the  soil.  The 
reason  people  have  indigestion  is  not  because  they  are  starv- 
ing, but  because  they  have  something  in  their  stomach  that 
won't  digest.  In  the  world  at  large  to-day,  in  America,  in 
places  where  men  and  women  have  heard  the  Gospel,  the  great 
majority  of  people  know  what  you  are  talking  about  when  you 
talk  about  salvation,  but  they  won't  digest  it.  We  were  going 
up  in  an  elevator  the  other  day.  I  spoke  quietly  to  the  el- 
evator boy.  He  turned  around  and  smiled,  and  I  said,  "I  see 
you  know  what  I  am  talking  about." 

"Oh  yes,  sir." 

"Did  you  have  a  Christian  mother?" 
"No,  sir." 

"Did  you  have  a  Christian  father?" 
"No,  sir." 


50 


SERMONS  BY  PAUL  RADER 


"Well,  where  did  you  learn  about  these  things?" 
"Oh,  that  stuff  is  in  the  air." 

I  said  to  him,  "If  you  were  dying  right  now,  how  would 
you  be  saved?" 

He  replied,  "I  would  call  on  the  name  of  Jesus  Christ." 

"You  know  the  truth  like  that?" 

"Oh,  I  go  to  a  church  once  in  a  while." 

"And  with  the  truth  in  your  heart  you  are  going  on  in  sin? 
You  are  about  the  worst  kind  of  a  sinner  on  earth." 

Mixtures 

There  are  thousands  and  thousands  like  that.  They  know 
the  truth.  The  greatest  trouble  we  have  to-day  is  so  many 
learned  men  know  the  truth,  so  many  ignorant  men  know  the 
truth,  so  many  of  all  sorts  of  folks  know  the  truth — but  they 
don't  mix  it  with  faith  in  the  soil  of  the  heart.  God  says  it 
must  be  mixed  with  faith.  The  food  that  goes  into  the  stom- 
ach must  be  mixed  with  gastric  juices,  or  it  will  not  digest. 
You  must  say  to  Him,  I  believe  you,  I  take  you,  you  came 
for  me.  The  soil  and  the  seed  must  come  together  in  a  chem- 
ical combination.  The  seed  gives  itself  up  to  the  soil,  the  soil 
gives  itself  up  to  the  seed,  and  soil  and  seed  start  in  together 
to  make  a  tree,  and  the  chemical  combinations  mix  down  there 
in  the  roots.  Can  the  little  tree  take  the  oil  and  run  little 
pieces  of  dirt  out  to  the  ends  of  the  branches?  No,  it  mixes 
with  water,  and  little  chemical  combinations  in  the  plant,  it 
mixes  itself  with  that  fundamental  power  of  life  in  the  plant 
and  thus  is  made  into  the  tree. 

Oh,  friends,  let  there  be  faith  in  your  heart  as  the  truth 
comes  forth. 

You  may  catch  the  vision,  but  here  is  the  thing  God  wants 
to  hear  from  you:  "Lord,  that  hundredfold  business  must  be 
mine.  I  must  produce  the  crop.  Not  only  other  men,  but  I 
must  produce  the  life.  I  must  have  this  holy  life  in  Jesus.  I 
must  have  this  life  given  up  to  Him.  I  must  have  the  Holy 
Spirit."  Paul  says,  "I  was  not  disobedient  to  the  heavenly 
vision."  Shipwrecked?  What  did  that  matter?  His  faith 
was  clinging  to  truth,  clinging  to  Jesus.    Does  the  tree  give 


"PLANTING  AND  PLANNING"  51 


up  because  the  northwester  swings  around?  No,  its  roots 
only  go  deeper.  If  your  soul  is  clinging  to  Jesus,  the  very 
adverse  things  will  be  the  things  that  strengthen  your  hold. 
You  won't  kick  back  at  the  people  that  shoot  at  you — you 
will  take  it,  and  it  will  only  drive  you  closer  to  Him.  You  will 
cling  to  Him  by  faith. 

Grabbing  By  Faith 
Now  God  in  the  first  chapter  of  Genesis  shows  us  His  plan- 
ning and  His  planting.  First  of  all  God  rolls  the  waters  back 
and  He  gets  the  soil  there.  That  is  what  He  gets  first  in  you. 
Afterwards  He  begins  to  plant  something.  He  says,  "Now  let 
the  earth  bring  forth  grass."  But  remember,  my  friends,  it 
is  the  earth  bringing  forth  grass.  God  doesn't  say,  "Let  the 
sun  bring  forth  grass.  Let  the  sky  bring  forth  grass."  Some 
of  you  are  saying,  "Let  God  bring  me  an  experience."  Oh  no 
— God  says,  Let  you  bring  forth.  God  put  the  seed  there, 
but  you  grab  it  by  faith,  and  the  crop  springs  up.  Some 
folks  wait  for  feeling.  You  will  get  all  the  feeling  you  can 
possibly  hold  if  you  will  trust  God  and  stand  on  His  Word. 
Where  is  this  thing  going  to  happen — in  my  head?  No  head 
was  ever  made  to  have  experiences.  It  is  only  the  roadway; 
the  eyes  are  a  roadway,  the  ears  are  a  roadway.  God  says 
your  heart  is  the  soil  and  Jesus  Christ  comes  into  your  heart; 
He  will  satisfy  everything  through  your  brain,  and  will  meet 
you  on  every  lme,  but  He  wants  you  to  take  Him  in  your 
heart  and  say  Praise  God,  He  is  mine! 

"LET  There  Be" 

Then  God  comes  to  man,  and  says,  Let  us  make  man  in  our 
own  image."  Now  He  says,  "I  have  made  the  whole  plan. 
You  come  into  My  plan."  He  planted  the  Garden  of  Eden, 
filled  it  with  other  creatures,  then  put  in  man  and  woman  and 
said  to  them,  Here  is  the  whole  thing.  Now  just  obey  Me 
and  everything  will  be  delightful. 

What  is  the  great  word  here  in  God's  account  of  creation. 
The  great  word  here  is  this  wonderful  word  LET.  God 
simply  says,  "Let" — "let  there  be  light."    God  didn't  create 


52 


SERMONS  BY  PAUL  RADER 


light  that  day.  You  know  the  earth  was  cursed  and  the  first 
view  you  get  of  it  after  those  first  ten  words  in  the  Bible  is 
of  a  cursed  world  wrapped  up  in  darkness  and  in  water — 
wrapped  up  and  hidden  away  because  of  the  curse  that  was. 
here  before  man.  God  shows  us  in  His  account  the  world  first 
of  all  as  a  wrapped-up  package,  swinging  out,  without  form 
and  void,  and  darkness  upon  the  face  of  the  deep,  as  if  God 
had  hung  crepe  on  it,  to  let  all  the  rest  of  the  stars  and  the 
universe  see  it  as  a  dead,  cursed  thing.  Then  God  says,  We 
will  make  it  a  home  for  man.  We  will  make  him  a  little  low- 
er than  the  angels,  give  him  an  emotion,  a  will  power  and  an 
intellect,  and  put  him  down  there.  So  God  begins  to  maka 
His  preparation.   Now  He  says,  Let  there  be  light. 

All  Provided  For 
Here  is  the  point  I  want  to  give  you.  Whenever  you  start 
out  to  walk  with  God,  remember  that  God  has  made  all  the 
provisions  ahead  of  time;  everything  you  will  ever  need,  God 
has  for  you  in  Christ  Jesus,  and  He  says  to  you  LET  Jesus 
in.  God  knows  the  soil  of  my  heart,  God  knows  whether  Je- 
sus has  conquered  this  disposition  of  mine.  I  don't  have  to 
ask  any  bunch  of  high-brows  what  Jesus  can  do  to  my  soul. 
I  just  let  Him  in,  and  I  will  have  a  testimony.  I  am  getting 
sick  of  folks  who  sit  around  without  an  experience,  without 
a  testimony.  It  is  a  sore  trial  and  I  have  been  before  God  in 
nights  of  prayer,  asking  that  you  come  to  the  place  where  you 
give  yourself  up  and  LET  Him  do  a  work  in  your  soul.  God 
wants  to  show  what  He  will  do  with  Moody  Church  if  we 
will  let  Him — let  Him — let  Him.  He  knows  what  He  wants 
us  to  do  in  the  coming  days,  but  Oh,  He  wants  a  people  down 
on  their  faces  before  Him,  to  let  God  do  the  thing  He  is  al- 
ready planning.  Somehow  our  poor  little  minds  seem  to  think 
we  have  to  plan.  Hallelujah,  we  don't!  God  planned  this 
tabernacle,  God  Himself  is  running  it,  and  if  we  will  let  God 
keep  His  hand  on  it,  He  will  bring  us  where  He  wants  to 
bring  us. 


"PLANTING  AND  PLANNING"  53 


"Will  You  Be  Good?" 
Now  He  says,  Let  there  be  a  firmament.  Praise  God,  I  am 
so  glad  for  that!  God  never  shuts  us  up  entirely,  if  we 
walk  with  Him.  Some  part  of  the  sky  is  open.  Sometimes 
we  need  it.  Old  clucking  hens  need  to  be  shut  up,  and  some 
of  these  fellows  who  are  all  the  time  quarrelling  with  God 
need  to  get  jailed  once  in  a  while,  until  they  say,  Yes,  Lord, 
I  will  be  good.  Like  the  mother  who  shuts  the  door  on  her 
little  child,  and  he  cries  on  the  inside.  By  and  by  she  opens 
the  door  and  says,  "Are  you  going  to  be  good?"  "No,  I  am 
going  to  cry  some  more."  He  cries  some  more,  and  after  a 
while  she  comes  back.  He's  ready  to  say,  "Yes,  mother,  I 
will  be  good." 

But  to  the  man  who  minds  God,  there  is  a  firmament. 

"I'm  living  on  the  mountain, 

Underneath  a  cloudless  sky,  praise  God! 
I'm  drinking  at  the  Fountain 
That  never  will  run  dry — Oh  yes, 

I'm  feasting  on  the  manna,  from  a  bountiful  supply, 
For  I  am  dwelling  in  Beulah  Land!" 

Then  He  says,  "Let  the  waters  gather  themselves  together 
in  one  place." 

Oh,  my  friend,  that  is  a  wonderful  verse  to  me  spiritually. 
He  said  to  the  old  sea,  Don't  you  come  up  here  again.  The 
ground,  the  dry  land,  must  come  forth  or  the  sower  could  not 
go  forth  to  sow. 

Dry  Land  Appears 

My  life  was  covered  with  water,  but  bless  God,  He  said  to 
the  sin  and  the  rolling  waves  of  my  own  passions,  the  roll- 
ing waves  of  my  own  personality,  my  own  heart,  thank  God, 
He  said  to  them  one  day:  "Go  back  there,  and  stay  there." 
And  He  gave  me  a  place  to  live  in,  dry  ground.  The  land 
came  forth  that  used  to  be  submerged  with  sin,  submerged  with 
doubt,  submerged  with  fear,  and  God  gave  the  dry  land  and 
the  waters  went  back. 

I  don't  know  what  it  means  to  you,  but  bless  God,  it 
means  life  to  me  this  morning,  that  He  commanded  the  waters 
to  gather  themselves  into  one  place. 


54 


SERMONS  BY  PAUL  RADER 


When  the  children  of  Israel  came  from  Egypt,  led  out 
toward  Canaan  Land,  they  had  to  cross  water.  If  you  are  go- 
ing to  change  your  living  place  spiritually  God  lets  you  cross 
over  water.  When  Abraham  came  out  of  his  own  country, 
what  did  he  cross? — Over  a  brook.  When  the  folks  came 
out  of  the  wilderness  and  went  over  Jordan,  God  rolled  back 
the  water  and  let  them  into  a  new  living  place.  Who  will  roll 
it  back?  God  will.  You  cannot  do  it.  You  cannot  force 
yourself  into  Canaan  Land,  you  cannot  force  yourself  into 
sanctifieation.  You  will  have  to  let  God  do  it.  You  will  have 
to  get  to  the  place  where  the  sea  is  behind,  the  enemy  on 
either  hand,  and  then  cry  out,  "0  Lord,  I  am  up  against  it.  I 
am  up  against  it."  Then  let  God  strike  the  water,  and  you 
will  go  through  into  a  new  land.  You  will  cross  over  that 
dead  thing  and  leave  it  behind  with  its  enemies. 

Water  and  Blood 

Oh,  I  beg  you  by  every  art  I  know  of  the  Holy  Ghost, 
to  enter  into  the  victorious  life  just  now  with  Jesus!  Cross 
over  Jordan  and  get  into  Canaan  Land! 

When  Jesus  died,  He  shed  both  water  and  Blood.  What 
for?  To  show  you  that  the. old  death  life  had  been  passed 
through.  He  moved  out  of  the  old  flesh  country  of  death, 
the  old  sad  life  of  death  that  had  corrupted  the  world.  God  let 
the  stream  come  out  of  Jesus'  side,  both  water  and  Blood. 
The  proof  of  His  death  was  the  water.  Water  does  not  gush 
out  of  a  side  that  isn't  dead.  He  was  dead.  He  had  crossed 
over  from  death  unto  life,  and  the  water  that  came  from  His 
side  was  a  proof  and  whoever  plunges  across  that  stream, 
praise  God,  has  life  forever!  And  the  Blood  came  out  to 
prove  that  it  was  life  that  had  passed  over  the  death  stream. 
"The  life  is  in  the  blood."  Across  the  stream  that  came 
from  His  side  whosoever  will  may  cross  into  a  new  country 
and  dwell  with  God.  Let  Him  roll  back  the  waters  now.  Let 
the  dry  land  be  yielded  to  Him  and  then  He  will  let  the 
harvest  come  on. 


"BORDER  BATTLES" 

I  want  to  talk  to  you  to-night  about  border  battles.  The 
subject  came  to  me  as  I  thought  of  the  Mexican  situation — 
of  how  a  few  men  down  there  could  run  across  the  border, 
commit  such  depredation  and  murder,  and  then  ride  back 
again.  Now  they  haven't  been  up  here  where  we  live,  and 
won't  get  up  here ;  we  are  way  back  in  our  own  country.  But 
on  the  border  line  these  things  happen.  So  to-night  I  am 
going  to  talk  to  you  about  living  on  the  border,  when  you 
could  live  where  God  is,  in  the  very  heart  of  His  love  and 
life.  Why  not  get  clear  back  into  the  country  of  God?  In 
other  words,  why  not  have  a  real  heaven-born  life  and  ex- 
perience ? 

There  are  some  folks  who  are  having  border  battles  all  the 
time;  that  murderer,  the  devil,  is  always  after  them.  They 
live  too  close  to  the  border.  There  are  others  who  are  on  one 
side  of  the  border  and  perhaps  their  citizenship  is  on  the  other 
side  of  the  border.  They  profess  to  be  Christians,  but  they 
live  in  the  world.  There  is  going  to  come  a  time  when  Jesus 
comes  back  again  when  we  shall  know  who  belongs  to  Him 
and  who  is  just  professing. 

Then 

I  want  to  read  a  very  familiar  passage  to  you,  the  twenty- 
fifth  chapter  of  Matthew.  Let  me  call  your  attention  to  the 
first  word  in  this  chapter:  "THEN." 

The  kingdom  of  heaven  will  not  be  as  God  describes  it  in 
this  chapter,  until  that  hour  when  the  Bridegroom  comes.  In 
the  thirteenth  chapter  of  Matthew  He  describes  the  NOW  of 
the  kingdom  of  heaven,  from  the  time  that  Jesus  died  until 
He  comes  again.  NOW  many  can  profess  and  seem  all  right, 
and  things  look  big;  but  in  this  twenty-fifth  chapter  He  says, 
"Then" — when  Jesus  comes — folks  will  be  shown  up  as  they 
really  are,  for  "Then  shall  the  kingdom  of  heaven  be  likened 
unto  ten  virgins,  which  took  their  lamps  and  went  forth  to 


56 


SERMONS  BY  PAUL  RADER 


meet  the  bridegroom.  Five  of  them  were  wise  and  five  were 
foolish." 

Many  of  you  know  this  chapter,  but  probably  there  are 
some  of  you  here  who  have  never  read  it.  Let  us  go  over  it 
together. 

Five  Wise  and  Five  Foolish 

"They  that  were  foolish  took  their  lamps,  and  took  no  oil 
with  them.  But  the  wise  took  oil  in  their  vessels  with  their 
lamps.  While  the  bridegroom  tarried,  they  all  slumbered  and 
slept.  And  at  midnight  there  was  a  cry  made,  Behold,  the 
bridegroom  cometh;  go  ye  out  to  meet  him.  Then  all  the  vir- 
gins arose,  and  trimmed  their  lamps.  And  the  foolish  said 
unto  the  wise,  Give  us  of  your  oil;  for  our  lamps  are  gone 
out.  But  the  wise  answered,  saying,  Not  so :  lest  there  be  not 
enough  for  us  and  you,  but  go  ye  rather  to  them  that  sell,  and 
buy  for  yourselves.  And  while  they  went  to  buy,  the  bride- 
groom came;  and  they  that  were  ready  went  in  with  him  to 
the  marriage;  and  the  door  was  shut.  Afterward  came  also 
the  other  virgins,  saying,  Lord,  Lord,  open  to  us.  But  he 
answered  and  said,  Verily  I  say  unto  you,  I  know  you  not. 
Watch  therefore;  for  ye  know  neither  the  day  nor  the  hour 
wherein  the  Son  of  man  cometh." 

Profession  vs.  Possession 

Now  this  is  just  the  kind  of  a  sermon  out  of  God's  Word 
for  the  time  in  which  we  live,  for  in  these  days  there  is  much 
profession  of  Christianity  and  very  little  possession.  Talk  as 
you  please,  my  friends,  if  you  were  in  my  place,  dealing  and 
talking  with  people  all  the  time  about  their  experiences^  you 
would  find  there  is  very  much  profession  of  Christianity  and 
few  people  with  the  witness  of  the  Spirit — the  oil  in  their  ves- 
sel— the  assurance  that  they  have  been  born  from  above. 

It  is  so  easy  to  profess  these  days.  You  do  not  lose  the 
house  over  your  head;  few  people  ever  laugh  at  you;  many 
clap  their  hands  when  you  come  to  Jesus;  they  pat  you  on  the 
back,  and  say,  "That's  the  thing."  It  is  so  easy  to  join 
churches  that  church  members  are  numbered  by  the  thousands ; 


"BORDER  BATTLES 


57 


but  the  people  born  from  above  are  not  numbered  by  statistics 
of  professors. 

Looked  the  Same 

God  wants  to  show  you  in  this  Scripture  I  have  read  to- 
night that  this  is  a  picture  of  our  time,  and  that  Jesus  is  to 
come  suddenly  on  the  scene,  and  this  appearance  at  once  di- 
vides between  professors  and  really  saved  souls.  Think  of  it: 
these  ten  virgins  go  out,  all  dressed  alike;  they  all  have  their 
lamps;  they  pass  along  the  street  and  every  one  says,  "They 
are  the  people,  they  are  the  ones" — you  wouldn't  notice  any 
difference  between  them.  They  all  went  to  the  meetings,  sang 
the  same  songs;  they  all  came  to  the  tabernacle,  they  all 
heard  the  same  songs,  they  all  heard  the  same  sermons — they 
all  looked  alike,  and  the  people  couldn't  tell  any  difference. 

I  might  say  to  them,  "Those  who  are  saved,  please  raise 
your  hands" — and  they  would  all  raise  their  hands. 

But  when  the  bridegroom  came,  only  five  of  them  got  in; 
and  five  were  left  out  in  great  agony  of  spirit.  Five  were 
wise  and  five  were  foolish. 

Make  Sure 

Say,  friend:  Don't  you  think  it  would  be  the  best  thing  in 
the  world  to-night  for  you  to  make  sure  you  are  saved?  We 
have  so  much  professional  Christianity  that  it  would  be  a 
splendid  thing  for  you  if  you  would  say  to  yourself,  "I  am 
going  to  know,  beyond  the  peradventure  of  a  doubt,  that  I 
have  passed  from  death  unto  life.  God  can  deliver  to  you 
the  assurance  in  your  soul,  and  you'll  know  it.  Then,  thank 
God,  you  will  have  His  life  in  your  heart,  and  when  the  Bride- 
groom comes  you  will  get  in. 

Think  of  it,  they  called  Him  Lord,  Lord,  Lord — yes,  as  you 
have,  some  of  you;  and  you  have  never  been  saved  in  your 
life.  You  have  never  had  the  witness  from  above;  worldly 
pleasures  still  are  your  source  of  joy.  "Lord,  open  unto  us!" 
But  He  says:  "I  know  you  not.  I  knocked,  and  you  would 
not  open.  You  put  Me  on,  you  slipped  Me  on  like  a  cloak. 
You  knew  the  passwords,  you  knew  the  language,  you  got  into 


58 


SERMONS  BY  PAUL  RADER 


the  virgin  crowd — the  church,  but  you  never  let  Me  in.  You 
never  gave  up  your  heart  to  Me  and  let  Me  walk  in  you.  I 
never  knew  you." 

Real  Experience 
Oh  God,  speak  to  us  to-night!  This  may  be  the  last  time 
that  some  souls  ever  get  a  chance  to  buy  oil  this  side  of  the 
appearing  of  Jesus  Christ  our  Lord.  The  Spirit  will  speak 
to  you,  men  and  women,  warning  you,  so  that  you  may  have  a 
real  experience  in  Jesus  to-night.  Thank  God  there  is  a  gen- 
uine one,  and  you  can  have  it.  "Come  buy,  without  money 
and  without  price" — it  flows  free.  But  you  will  have  to  get 
your  heart  open ;  then  you  would  not  be  ashamed  to  come  down 
that  aisle  with  the  tears  running  down  your  cheeks.  Then  you 
will  admit  your  need  of  Him ;  your  utter  lost  condition  outside 
of  His  life  and  virtue.  Oh  may  God  put  a  hunger  upon  this 
congregation  to-night  for  old-fashioned  genuine  salvation 
from  sin  by  the  power  of  the  Blood  of  Jesus  and  the  life  that 
is  in  Him  alone. 

One  of  the  Twelve 

Yes,  we  have  these  multitudes  of  folks  that  look  all  right. 
When  Jesus  was  standing  in  the  streets  with  His  disciples,  I 
imagine  men  could  say,  "Who  is  that  sagacious  looking  man 
there  with  Him?  He  must  be  very  close  to  Jesus,  because  he 
is  holding  the  bag;  he  must  be  the  chief  est  disciple.  He  is  a 
fine  looking  fellow — see  how  he  snaps  his  eyes.  See  how  he 
stands  there  in  bold  defiance  of  the  crowd.  He  doesn't  seem 
to  be  so  meek  as  those  other  poor  old  fish-smelling  fishermen. 
Pretty  nifty,  isn't  he?   He  looks  like  a  banker." 

And  he  heard  them  talking  about  him  and  kind  of  smoothed 
down  his  clothing  and  straightened  his  beard  a  little  bit. 

Yes — he  looked  it — but  his  name  was  Judas,  and  he  never 
got  in.  Judas,  in  the  twelve,  but  not  in  the  redeemed.  "But 
Mr.  Rader,  Judas  took  communion."  Sure;  but  Judas  will  be 
in  hell. 

Listen  to  me,  my  friends.  God  help  me  to-night — and  I  have 
asked  Him  all  day  to  help  me  to  help  you — to  get  you  out  of 
hypocrisy  and  the  awful,  terrible  mist  that  is  over  the  eyes  of 


"BORDER  BATTLES1 


59 


professing  Christianity  to-day;  to  get  you  into  the  place  where 
your  heart  is  changed  and  you  are  born  from  above  and  you 
know  it.  I  tell  you,  there  are  some  of  you  here  from  different 
churches  in  and  out  of  this  city  who  don't  know  you  are 
saved.  You  haven't  a  testimony.  You  have  no  oil  in  your 
lamp. 

No  Testimony 

I  remember  hearing  a  group  of  convention  men  speak  once, 
when  I  had  with  me  a  young  fellow  who  wasn't  a  Christian;  I 
brought  him  there  to  get  help,  but  there  was  no  help  there. 
He  said  to  me,  "Paul,  do  you  call  those  fellows  saved?"  I 
said,  "I  guess  they  are,  son." 

"Well,  now,"  he  says,  "they  talk  fine."  And  then  he  turned 
around  to  me  and  said  something  that  has  been  a  help  to  me 
from  that  day  to  this.  He  said,  "Paul,  I  have  been  on  street 
corners  and  listened  to  men  preach,  and  as  they  spoke  they 
had  a  testimony,  but  not  one  of  those  fellows  who  have  talked 
to-day  had  a  testimony." 

"My,"  I  thought,  "if  a  sinner  can  shoot  a  bullet  like  that, 
what  will  God  shoot  when  He  opens  us  up?" 

"They  have  no  testimony."  They  could  talk  about  doctrine, 
they  could  talk  about  things,  but  not  once  came  the  flow  of 
their  own  soul,  with  their  own  love  for  Jesus  and  what  had 
happened  to  their  own  hearts.  Not  an  underflow  through  their 
words  that  would  indicate  the  oil  of  His  presence. 

Even  Before  Gabriel 
And  if  you  have  a  testimony,  you  could  stand  before  Ga- 
briel and  the  archangel  and  the  people  in  Chicago,  and  say, 
"Thank  God,  I  have  passed  from  death  unto  life."  God  help 
you  to  get  an  experience  to-night;  have  a  testimony;  tell  men 
and  women  you  are  saved.  If  you  cannot  truly  witness  to  the 
fact  that  you  are  saved  you  will  have  a  pretty  hard  time  try- 
ing to  get  into  the  marriage  supper  of  the  Lamb.  If  there  is 
no  flowing  oil  in  your  soul  to-night  burning  for  Him,  how  do 
you  expect  to  meet  Him  when  He  comes? 


60 


SERMONS  BY  PAUL  RADER 


Fear  Removed 

Are  you  the  kind  that  is  filled  with  fear  of  people  instead 
of  love  for  Christ?  You  care  more  for  what  the  man  or  the 
woman  sitting  beside  you  thinks  than  what  Jesus  Christ  thinks  ? 
When  I  ask  you  to  walk  down  these  aisles  you  look  at  people. 
Jesus  isn't  your  God.  You  are  not  cut  loose  from  the  devil 
and  the  world  and  people,  unto  Him.  His  love,  thank  God, 
will  cast  all  that  fear  out  of  you.  You  may  tremble  in  your 
knees,  but  your  heart  will  move  your  lips  with  love. 

Like  one  fellow  who  said  to  me,  "The  night  after  I  was 
saved  and  you  called  on  us  to  testify,  first  I  trembled  in  my 
feet,  then  I  trembled  in  my  tongue,  but  my  heart  would  get 
it  out,  or  die."  And  that  fellow  had  a  testimony,  too.  My 
Bible  tells  me  if  I  am  ashamed  of  Him  before  men,  He  will 
be  ashamed  of  me  before  His  Father  which  is  in  heaven.  And 
He  doesn't  lie.  May  God  take  fear  of  men  out  of  your  heart 
to-night,  save  you  and  make  you  a  witness  for  Jesus,  with  oil 
in  your  lamp. 

Judas  was  with  the  Christian  crowd,  yes,  with  the  crowd. 
Oh,  the  horror  of  that  man's  end,  the  terror  of  his  death,  to 
walk  in  there  and  take  the  thirty  pieces  of  silver,  and  sell  Jesus 
out;  and  then  go  away  and  commit  suicide,  when  he  could 
have  lived  forever  with  the  same  Christ  he  sold. 

"All  Slumbered" 

"While  the  bridegroom  tarried,  they  all  slumbered  and  slept." 

The  devil  is  up  and  coming;  at  it  constantly,  and  his  gang 
are  busy  night  and  day,  but  oh  how  he  loves  to  get  God's 
children  to  feel  tired.  The  fellow  that  used  to  go  to  a  dance 
every  little  while  until  the  morning  hours  has  been  saved 
quite  a  while  now,  and  if  he  had  to  spend  a  half  night  in 
prayer  he  would  feel  that  at  once  a  golden  crown  should  drop 
on  him. 

Sing  Lullaby 

The  actors  do  matinees  and  every  night  shows  and  have  to 
make  the  crowd  laugh,  no  matter  how  they  feel,  and  get  new 


"BORDER  BATTLES" 


61 


stuff  and  keep  up  the  pace,  but  if  a  preacher  tries  to  beat 
the  devil  on  an  eternally-at-it  basis,  the  devil  tries  to  make 
him  think  he'll  soon  die  from  his  puissant  practices,  with  pul- 
monic poverty,  and  immediately  begins  to  sing  a  lullaby. 

Forget 

Or  he'll  get  the  folks  so  taken  up  with  other  things  that  they 
slumber  to  the  fact  that  any  moment  their  Lord  may  come 
from  the  glory.  Oh  he  may  try  to  keep  people  from  letting 
others  know  anything  about  what  God  teaches  in  His  Word  of 
the  return  of  Jesus  to  catch  away  His  redeemed  ones.  Then 
the  five  wise,  saved  ones  may  slumber. 

Calls  of  the  World 
But  the  foolish  are  eased  to  sleep,  about  Christ's  return,  by 
the  pleasures  and  calls  of  the  world.    They're  thinking  about 
money,  clothes,  positions,  pleasures,  worldly  profits  and  little 
earth  thrones  of  destruction  and  thus  they  slumber. 

"A  Cry  Made" 

"At  midnight  there  was  a  cry  made."  There  has  come  a 
great  cry  of  late.  "Behold,  the  Bridegroom  cometh."  Those 
who  raised  their  voices  a  quarter  of  a  century  ago  were  put 
into  the  class  with  the  fanatics.  It  was  foolish  to  say  the 
Bible  taught  that  Jesus  was  coming  back  to  this  earth  to  reign. 
To  believe  it  and  teach  it  meant  ecclesiastical  ostracism. 

Now  Popular 

Those  who  taught  it  then  were  made  to  feel  the  keen  blade 
of  separation.  But  of  recent  years  the  teaching,  because  of 
the  stand  of  great  Bible  teachers  and  great  evangelists  and 
writers,  has  become  almost  popular.  Bible  Conferences  all 
over  the  country  have  spread  the  cry  far  and  wide.  And  this 
in  a  day  when  the  cold  wing  of  biblical  criticism,  and  a  call 
for  natural  religion  from  the  places  of  canned  education  was 
increasing  the  midnight  darkness  of  unbelief  and  worldliness. 


62 


SERMONS  BY  PAUL  RADER 


Destructive  Cry 

The  cry  is  still  going  forth:  "Behold,  the  Bridegroom  com- 
eth;  go  ye  out  to  meet  Him."  It  is  the  most  destructive  cry 
among  the  followers  of  Christ  to-day.  Millions  of  pages  of 
literature  in  the  form  of  papers,  magazines  and  books,  con- 
cerning the  Lord's  return  are  being  sent  far  and  wide,  edited 
by  godly  and  scholarly  men. 

Wake  Up 

God  intended  that  this  cry  should  wake  men  up  to  their  lack 
of  life  in  Jesus  and  to  the  approach  of  the  Lord.  He  says, 
"He  that  hath  this  hope  in  him  purifieth  himself  even  as  He  is 
pure." 

"Behold,  the  Bridegroom  cometh."  Yes,  He  will  soon  be  here. 
Jesus  Himself  coming  back  again — my  Jesus.  Shall  I  see  Him ; 
I,  who  was  a  dinner,  who  but  a  few  years  ago  refused  to 
speak  His  name  or  sing  His  praise?  I,  a  sinner,  shall  I  see 
Him?  Yes,  glory  to  God,  a  sinner  saved  by  grace,  and  I 
shall  behold  His  matchless  face!  I  have  been  born  again  and 
I  may  see  Him.    Oh  bless  His  name. 

Brother,  if  there  was  hope  for  me,  there  is  hope  for  you.  I 
was  a  hypocrite — oh,  how  I  hate  to  say  it;  I  was  a  hypocrite, 
as  hundreds  of  you  are  to-night,  but  praise  God  I  went  in  for 
something  and  I  got  it.  And  you  may  have  it.  I  was  a  pro- 
duct of  the  churchanity  of  our  day.  Oh,  there  are  so  many 
these  days,  born  of  the  gasoline  and  machinery  of  the  church 
and  not  of  the  Blood  of  Jesus  Christ.  But  thank  God,  the 
thing  happened  in  my  life,  and  to-night  I  am  born  from  above. 
Oh,  let  the  cry  come  to  you  to-night,  and  you  come  to  Him 
while  the  cry  rings  out;  there  is  oil  now. 

Give  Us  of  Your  Oil 
And  they  cried:  "Give  us  of  your  oil."  "No — I  wish  I 
could."  I  wish  I  could  go  down  every  aisle  and  up  and  down 
the  benches  and  just  give  you  the  oil  that  is  in  my  heart;  but 
I  cannot.  You  will  have  to  come  to  Christ  and  get  it  for  your- 
self and  there  is  a  chance  to-night  to  get  it. 


"BORDER  BATTLES" 


63 


A  young  girl  went  down  to  one  of  the  Southern  colleges. 
She  had  the  prettiest  of  auburn  hair,  and  she  could  sit  down 
at  a  canvass  with  her  paints  and  brushes  and  sketch  anything 
— so  easily.  She  would  sit  in  school  and  draw  pictures  of  the 
girls.  They  said  to  her,  "How  did  you  get  it,  that  auburn 
hair  of  yours?" 

And  she  would  tell  them  one  thing  and  another — what  she 
washed  it  with  to  give  it  the  color.  Then  they  asked  her  how 
she  did  these  sketches,  these  pictures — and  she  said  she  prac- 
ticed for  hours.  She  had  been  drawing  since  she  had  on  little 
short  dresses.  She  tried  to  tell  them  they  could  do  it  if  they 
worked. 

So  one  day  the  mother  came  to  the  school  to  visit  her  daugh- 
ter. When  she  got  off  the  train,  here  was  the  same  auburn 
hair.  They  looked  at  Dora,  and  said,  "Now  we  know  where 
you  got  it."  The  mother  sat  in  the  room  with  her  pencil, 
while  three  of  the  girls  were  singing,  a  little  extemporaneous 
trio,  and  when  the  next  paper  came  out  here  was  a  little  car- 
toon of  these  three,  a  perfect  picture  of  them  that  Dora's  moth- 
er drew.  And  the  girls  said  again,  "Now  we  know  where  you 
got  it;  she  passed  it  along  to  you." 

Join  Churches 
Oh,  you  cannot  get  this  oil  by  works;  it  must  come  from 
Jesus.  It  is  a  personal  matter  between  you  and  Him.  You 
must  be  born  of  Him.  Joining  societies,  churches,  cannot  do 
it.  We  ask  you  to  join  churches,  when?  When  you  have  the 
oil,  when  you  have  been  saved.  Get  saved  first — and  then  after- 
wards join,  if  you  want  to.  And  you  ought  to,  if  you  have 
been  saved;  and  if  you  have  been  saved  you  will  want  to. 
Why?  Paul  says,  "I  know  I  have  passed  from  death  unto 
life,  because  I  love  the  brethren."  And  the  person  who  has 
been  born  again  will  "love  the  brethren"  and  you  cannot  keep 
him  out  of  the  church.  He  will  say,  "Where  can  I  stick  closer 
to  folks  like  those  who  have  been  saved?"  He  wants  to  join 
in  with  new  creatures  in  Christ  Jesus,  like  himself. 


64 


SERMONS  BY  PAUL  RADER 


The  Door  Was  Shut 

Now  comes  the  awful  statement  of  Jesus  (for  Jesus  gave 
out  this  parable  Himself  to  His  disciples).  He  says,  "And  the 
door  was  shut."  Friends,  I  think  that  is  a  most  awful  state- 
ment :  "And  the  door  was  shut" — was  shut.  There  is  another 
statement  that  is  terrible  to  me,  and  something  like  it,  in  the 
Bible,  and  that  is :  "Judas  went  out  and  it  was  night."  Sitting 
at  the  table  with  Jesus,  he  dips  in  the  sop,  then  he  goes  out  to 
betray  Him,  and  "it  was  night" — night — night.  "And  the  door 
was  shut."  Five  people  on  the  outside,  knocking,  "Lord,  Lord, 
Lord,"  and  it  was  shut. 

Friend,  there  comes  a  time  when  all  your  efforts  are  as 
nothing.  God  has  invited  you  to  open  your  heart,  and  you 
laugh  and  shut  it  up  and  walk  out  of  the  tabernacle.  He  says 
there  will  come  a  time  when  you  will  knock,  and  it  will  be  too 
late.  Judas  had  a  chance  to  have  Jesus,  but  the  time  came 
when  he  went  and  hanged  himself,  and  down  in  hell  he  will 
walk  around  and  say  to  men,  "Say,  did  you  see  the  thirty 
pieces  of  silver?"  And  he  will  sit  there  counting  them — one, 
two,  three,  four,  five,  six.  The  men  will  look  over  his  shoulder, 
and  say,  "What  are  you  doing1?" 

"I  am  counting  my  money,  that  is  what  I  am  doing.  Who 
are  you?" 

"I  am  the  rich  young  ruler." 

"You  down  here,  too?" 

"Yes.  You  are  only  counting  thirty.  I  had  millions  to 
count." 

"Well,  go  on  and  count  them." 

Oh,  forever  counting  money.  "What  is  it  worth,  Judas?" 
"Nothing — but  we  will  have  to  count  it  forever."  "Did  you 
have  a  chance  to  get  the  life  of  Jesus?"  "Yes."  "Did  you 
take  Him?"  "No."   "What  did  you  take ?"  "Money— money," 

"Dances — Dances" 
Young  girl,  forever  you  will  count  off  your  dances,  dances, 
dances,  dances — hell  and  dances.    Your  card  parties — your 
little  movies — your  little  shows.    You  know  you  refuse  Jesus 


"BORDER  BATTLES" 


G5 


because  you  love  the  world — these  things  are  your  world.  For- 
ever— oh,  they  will  get  stale,  but  forever  you  will  count  them 
off — forever. 

And  Pilate  will  walk  up  through  the  crowd  and  say,  "I 
want  a  little  water — have  you  got  a  little  water?" 
"What  do  you  want  it  for,  Pilate?" 

"I  want  to  wash  my  hands — to  wash  my  hands  of  the  whole 
matter." 

And  you  will  say,  "Oh,  I  want  a  chance  in  one  of  those 
benches  again.  I  had  a  chance  in  the  tabernacle  one  night 
to  take  the  Son  of  God  in  my  heart,  but  I  said  'I  guess  I  will 
get  along  all  right.  I  want  to  live  with  a  bunch  of  live  ones, 
full  of  the  pep  of  sin.   I'm  going  out  to  live  my  own  life.'  " 

My  God,  wake  you  up  to-night.  Jesus  of  Nazareth  passeth 
by,  and  can  save  you  if  you  will  let  Him.  But  remember; 
"The  door  was  shut."    Don't  wait. 

Little  Davie 

Little  Davie,  a  young  traveling  man  of  the  west,  married 
little  Kathreen  the  year  I  left  a  certain  town.  When  I  came 
back  there  they  said  to  me,  "Do  you  remember  little  Davie?" 

"Sure,"  I  said. 

They  said,  "Go  up  to  the  insane  asylum  and  see  him." 
"What,  the  insane  asylum?    Where  is  Kathreen?" 
"Oh,  she  is  dead." 
"Tell  me  about  her." 

Why,  Davie  went  off  one  day  on  one  of  his  regular  trips, 
to  be  gone  two  weeks.  He  had  never  told  Kathreen  he 
drank.  That  was  all  on  the  side.  He  never  told  Kathreen 
he  was  a  sport.  That  was  all  on  the  side.  His  mother  never 
knew  he  was  a  sport.  That  was  all  on  the  side.  They  tele- 
graphed him  at  his  scheduled  hotel  and  town,  but  they  couldn't 
find  him.  For  many  days  they  hunted  for  him.  Finally  he 
came  back  for  a  change  of  clothes  at  the  hotel  where  he  had 
first  stopped,  and  he  read  the  telegrams  that  were  waiting 
there  for  him:  "She  is  dead.  She  is  buried.  We  couldn't 
find  you." 


66 


SERMONS  BY  PAUL  RADER 


He  went  back  to  the  city  and  ran  up  to  the  little  house  he 
had  furnished  for  her,  and  he  yelled  outside  the  door — but 
nobody  came.  One  of  the  neighbors  jumped  across  the  fence, 
and  called,  "Hello,  Davie." 

He  says,  "What  is  the  matter?    Where  is  she?" 

"We  have  had  the  funeral,  and  she  is  gone." 

"She  is  gone — I  never  saw  her!" 

"She  is  gone,  Davie.  We  telegraphed  to  you,  but  you  were 
drunk." 

"My  God!"  He  ran  down  yelling  at  the  top  of  his  voice, 
to  his  mother's  place,  and  she  looked  at  him  and  said,  "Davie, 
she  is  gone." 

He  started  up  and  down  the  town,  crying,  "She  can't  be 
gone,  she  can't  be  gone."  Yes — but  she  is  gone.  "She  can't  be 
dead."  Yes — but  she  is  dead. 

He  was  too  late.    She  went  while  Davie  was  drunk. 

Oh,  some  of  you  say,  "I  will  get  by."  Won't  you  listen 
to  me  to-night,  and  come  to  Jesus  now,  while  you  may?  The 
door  is  going  to  be  shut,  is  going  to  be  shut  as  it  was  for 
Davie.  Too  late!  "THEN  shall  the  kingdom  of  heaven  be 
likened  unto  the  condition  I  am  talking  about.  Then,  But 
you  know  neither  the  day  nor  the  hour  when  the  Son  of  man 
cometh," 

A  San  Francisco  Man 

When  Mr.  McKee  and  I  were  at  the  tabernacle  in  San 
Francisco,  there  was  a  man  with  a  little  black  moustache  who 
sat  near  to  the  front  with  his  wife  and  daughter.  I  noticed 
him  smile  at  them,  every  time  we  would  talk  about  something 
real,  of  salvation;  the  joy  would  come  in  his  face.  One  day 
I  was  walking  along  and  met  him,  and  he  said,  "I  don't  know 
whether  you  noticed  me  or  not;  I  sit  there  near  you,  Mr. 
Rader.    I  want  to  tell  you  about  my  case." 

He  said,  "Before  the  earthquake,  my  wife  and  my  daugh- 
ter used  to  go  over  to  Oakland  and  visit  some  little  meetings 
over  there.  They  learned  about  real  salvation,"  he  says,  "and 
I  tell  you,  they  got  it.  They  brought  it  into  the  home.  I  am 
a  chef  in  one  of  the  cafes  down  here,  and  was  raised  in  the 


"BORDER  BATTLES" 


67 


old  country.  Church  was  good  enough  for  me.  I  said,  Til 
take  my  little  show,  my  little  smoke,  my  little  drink  when  I 
want  it,  my  own  way.'  I  had  been  confirmed,  and  could  recite 
the  catechism  in  three  languages;  my  father  had  a  parish 
in  the  old  country,  and  I  was  proud  of  my  church  connection." 

Reail  Oil 

"But  oh,"  he  said,  "my  wife  got  something  real.  She  had 
something  real  or  she  never  could  have  stood  all  the  stuff  I 
threw  at  her.  Then,"  he  says,  "she  came  back  and  told  me 
Jesus  was  coming  again;  how  He  was  going  to  come  down 
and  catch  up  His  own  and  the  rest  of  them  would  be  left, 
and  there  would  be  such  great  tribulation.  I  tried  to  throw 
it  off,  but  I  couldn't  get  it  off:  me.  I  would  rattle  the  dishes 
while  I  was  cooking,  and  try  to  sing  some  old  songs  and  make 
all  the  noise  I  could,  but  I  couldn't  get  away  from  the  fact 
that  there  was  something  that  I  didn't  have,  that  somehow 
I  ought  to  have  a  connection  with  God  I  didn't  have.  I  knew 
my  wife  had  it. 

"One  day — I  had  never  done  such  a  thing  in  my  life  before 
— I  slapped  her.  The  daughter  made  a  sweet  mild  protest, 
and  I  slapped  her.  Then  I  went  down  town  and  it  was  worse 
still.  I  couldn't  cook,  until  I  had  called  my  wife  up  on  the 
telephone  and  said,  'You'll  have  to  forgive  me.'  And  she  said, 
It's  all  right.'  She  had  something  and  I  knew  she  had  some- 
thing. 

"So  the  days  went  on.  They  had  a  great  banquet  on  one 
day,  and  I  was  sleeping  that  night  down  in  the  hotel,  as  I  often 
did.  You  know  how  the  quake  came  on,"  he  says.  "I  was 
asleep  in  a  folding  bed,  and  the  only  thing  I  could  remember 
was  the  head  of  that  bed  coming  for  me,  and  the  next  thing 
I  knew  it  hit  me.  When  I  woke  up  I  began  to  push  my  way 
out  of  that  bed.  I  climbed  on  the  floor,  and  part  of  the 
building  was  gone.  If  I  had  taken  another  step  I  would  have 
dropped  down  many  floors.  I  looked  out  over  the  city  and 
the  smoke  was  rolling  over  the  whole  affair." 


68 


SERMONS  BY  PAUL  RADER 


God's  Word  a  Sword 

He  says,  "Rader,  I  can  never  tell  you  how  the  truth  of 
God's  Word  came  to  me.  My  wife  had  read  to  me  the  story 
of  the  five  wise  and  the  five  foolish  virgins;  how  some  were 
taken  and  the  others  didn't  get  in,  and,"  he  said,  "I  thought  I 
was  left  behind.  But  I  said,  'Lord,  as  long  as  there  is  life  in 
me,  I  will  seek  you.'  And  I  started  to  seek  Him.  Men  yelled 
for  me  to  try  to  come  down.  I  didn't  care  whether  I  came 
down  or  not.  I  was  going  to  settle  the  question  of  eternity 
with  God.  I  pleaded  with  God.  I  hunted  around  to  see  if  my 
wife  by  chance  had  left  a  Testament  in  my  pocket. 

"Finally  the  men  got  hold  of  me.  They  thought  I  was 
crazy  because  I  was  praying  and  calling  for  God,  and  they 
locked  me  up.  But  days  after  they  let  my  little  wife  come  to 
me.  And  she  led  me  to  Jesus.  In  a  few  minutes,"  he  said,  "I 
was  as  calm  as  a  baby  in  a  mother's  arms,  and  I  said,  'My 
God,  I'm  saved,  I'm  saved !  Something  is  real.'  "  He  said, 
"I  went  after  oil,  and  I  got  it!" 

"I  Am  the  Way,  the  Truth  and  the  Life" — Jesus 
Friend,  whenever  you  seek  Jesus  you  will  get  Him.  He 
says,  "In  the  day  that  ye  seek  Me  with  all  your  heart,  ye  shall 
surely  find  Me."  The  door  will  be  shut  some  day — it  is  open 
now — will  you  step  in  while  you  can?  Man,  woman,  in  God's 
name  let  me  help  you  to  Jesus  now.  Do  not  be  satisfied  with 
a  profession,  with  lamps,  robes  and  songs,  but  have  a  new 
life  given  by  Jesus  Christ:  The  oil;  His  Spirit  a  burning 
witness  within  you. 

Which  shall  it  be:  Wise  or  foolish?  Profession  or  real 
possession?  Come!  Decide  before  the  door  is  shut.  Buy  oil 
now,  without  money  and  without  price.  Cross  over  the  border 
and  have  your  citizenship  in  heaven  and  your  life  in  Jesus. 


OUT  OF  THE  CAVE 

"I  cried  unto  God  with  my  voice,  even  unto  God  with  my 
voice;  and  He  gave  ear  unto  me  *  *    *  *,"  Ps.  77. 

This  Psalm  tells  the  story  of  David  and  how  he  got  out  of 
the  cave.  As  Professor  James  G.  Murphy  of  Belfast  says  in 
his  commentary,  "The  Psalm  was  most  probably  composed 
on  some  critical  emergency  in  the  eventful  life  of  David.  The 
hiding  of  David  in  the  cave  of  Adullam  has  been  suggested 
by  different  writers." 

It  is  the  devil's  peculiar  joy  to  get  us  into  a  hole,  and  it  is 
God's  particular  delight  to  get  us  out  of  it.  The  man  or  the 
woman  who  has  learned  how  to  get  hold  of  God  and  get  out 
of  a  hole,  out  of  a  predicament,  out  of  a  dark  place,  has 
found  the  greatest  joy  in  the  world,  for  this  reason:  he  has 
found  reality  in  God.  This  is  the  greatest  joy  in  the  world, 
to  lay  hold  on  a  promise  of  God  and  feel  the  pull  of  God  on  the 
other  end  that  lifts  you  out.    Oh,  it  is  delightful. 

A  Delightful  Sensation 
A  group  of  men  were  standing  around  and  talking  about 
a  "delightful  sensation/7  and  a  man  from  the  coal  mines  said 
to  them:   "You  fellows  don't  know  what  a  delightful  sensa- 
tion is." 

He  said,  "I  was  in  a  coal  mine  when  there  was  an  explo- 
sion and  a  cave-in  and  I  was  left  alone  in  a  large  cavern.  I 
reached  around  for  anything  that  I  could  get  with  which  to 
make  a  signal.  I  was  in  a  room  where  there  was  no  pipe, 
so  I  couldn't  tap  the  pipe.  There  was  quite  a  bit  of  air  m 
the  room,  and  I  groped  around  probably  for  twelve  hours  try- 
ing to  get  hold  of  something,  but  I  couldn't  find  a  thing. 

"Finally,"  he  said,  "there  slipped  into  my  hand  a  wire,  and 
all  of  a  sudden  it  dawned  upon  me  that  this  wire  ran  into  the 
elevator  shaft.  I  began  to  pull  the  wire — and  then  the  aw- 
fullest  feeling  in  the  world  came  over  me,  because  when  I 
pulled,  the  wire  came  my  way.   I  thought  the  men  might  be  at 


70 


SERMONS  BY  PAUL  RADER 


rescue  work  in  the  shaft,  but  when  the  wire  came  my  way  I 
utterly  lost  hope.  I  just  laid  down  and  cried.  I  was  dis- 
couraged, I  was  worn  out. 

Always  Pull  Again 
"Something  within  me  made  me  pull  at  the  wire  again, 
and  when  I  pulled  it  again,  some  one  at  the  other  end  just 
pulled  it  out  of  my  hands.  They  didn't  hear  me  yell  up 
there,  but  I  want  to  tell  you  I  yelled,  feet  and  head  and  body 
and  everything  else,  I  yelled.  I  pulled  again — they  pulled 
back.  I  tell  you  it  was  just  a  joy  to  pull  and  pull  and  feel 
them  at  the  other  end..  They  knew  where  I  was,  just  by  the 
wire,  and  before  long  they  had  a  hole  through  the  excavation, 
and  I  was  out;  in  my  wife's  arms,  and  my  children  climbing 
all  over  me." 

Friend,  there  is  no  joy  like  the  joy  of  laying  hold  of  God's 
promise  and  feel  God  tug  at  the  other  end.  God  wants  to  get 
us  out  of  the  holes  and  caves  of  life,  and  the  devil  wants  to 
get  us  in. 

David  Chosen  of  God 
God  had  picked  David  out,  wonderfully  anointed  him,  and 
told  him  what  his  life  work  was  to  be;  now  he  found  himself 
pursued,  haunted,  hunted  by  his  great  enemy,  Saul,  chased 
into  a  cave.  The  old  cave  life  was  hard  on  David.  He  could 
picture  his  enemy  on  the  throne  and  it  made  the  cave  even 
worse.  He  cried  out  despondently:  "I  am  sick  of  this  old 
cave;  I  am  sick  of  myself;  I'm  sick  of  the  crowd  that's  with 
me." 

Poor  troubled  fellow,  with  his  hair  knotted  up,  his  clothes 
dirty,  needing  a  bath  and  something  to  eat;  sick  of  this  old 
cave.  He  was  so  sick  of  it  that  the  cave  got  on  the  inside  of 
him.  There  are  times  when  you  can  throw  off  your  circum- 
stances, and  these  times  are  always  if  they  are  only  on  you; 
but  if  you  allow  them  to  get  in  you  they  will  throw  you  down. 
The  trouble  was  not  only  that  David  was  in  the  cave,  but  the 
cave  was  in  him. 


OUT  OF  THE  CAVE 


71 


It  is  not  an  awful  thing  to  be  in  the  world,  but  when  the 
world  is  in  you,  then  real  trouble  starts.  A  ship  may  sail 
well  and  be  in  the  water,  but  oh  the  trouble  when  the  water 
comes  into  the  ship! 

Has  God  Forgotten? 
The  cave  pressed  upon  David  until  he  began  to  feel  God  had 
gone  clear  back  on  him.    "Has  He  forgotten  to  be  merciful*? 
Has  He  in  anger  shut  up  His  tender  mercies?"  he  cries  out 
in  anguish. 

"Did  you  ever  have  any  experiences  with  the  Lord,  David  f 
"Yes,  but  I  don't  believe  I  will  ever  have  them  again;  I 
don't  believe  there  is  any  hope.    Life's  so  small  in  the  cave. 
God  seems  far  away." 

And  David  started  out  to  be  despondent  and  discouraged, 
as  so  many  Christians  are  these  days.  I  find  so  many  folks 
who  are  oppressed  of  the  devil ;  the  devil  seems  to  get  his  hands 
on  them  and  wears  them  out  and  oppresses  them;  tries  to  get 
circumstances  to  get  inside  of  their  souls,  and  let  prayer  stop 
and  faith  leak  out,  and  their  tongues  begin  to  talk  of  cir- 
cumstances instead  of  God  and  His  rich  promises. 

In  Spite  of  Circumstances 
And  God  says,  "I  want  to  teach  you  how  to  trust  Me  in 
spite  of  circumstances  and  in  spite  of  disappointment,  and  in 
spite  of  the  things  'round  about  you.  He  had  to  teach  David 
that,  or  David  would  never  have  been  able  to  shout  in  the 
Psalms  as  he  did.  David  shouts  later  because  he  has  some- 
thing to  shout  about;  he  has  a  glad  song  in  his  heart  later  be- 
cause he  has  gone  through  something  with  God. 

A  Splendid  Warning 

So  in  this  seventy-seventh  Psalm  David  starts  out  with  a 
warning;  shows  us  what  a  mistake  he  made.  He  says,  "I 
complained,  and  my  spirit  was  overwhelmed." 

If  you  commence  to  complain  when  you  get  in  a  hard 
place,  you  are  patting  the  devil  on  the  back.  The  minute  you 
begin  to  murmur  against  God,  you  jump  clear  over  onto  the 


72 


SERMONS  BY  PAUL  RADER 


devil's  side  and  boost  his  game.  The  minute  you  begin  to  say, 
"Other  people  have  it  pretty  good,  but  I  haven't/'  you  are 
right  over  where  the  devil  can  fill  you  with  purple  ink;  you 
will  be  overwhelmed;  there  won't  be  a  thing  you  can  get  hold 
of;  you  will  be  absolutely  despondent. 

Because 

Why?  Because  the  minute  a  man  begins  to  complain 
against  a  God  who  is  for  him,  begins  to  complain  about  a  God 
who  loves  him  so  much  that  he  sent  Jesus  Christ  into  the  world 
to  die  for  him  and  beat  the  devil  and  save  him  in  spite  of  the 
fact  that  he  was  a  rebel  and  an  alien  from  God,  is  manufac- 
turing clouds  to  shut  out  the  sun.  This  loving  God  is  willing 
to  lift  him  up  and  give  him  a  place  as  the  very  Bride  of  Christ, 
and  if  he  complains  against  Him  there  is  no  more  light  in 
the  world.  The  saddest  mistake  a  man  or  woman  can  make 
is  to  complain  against  God  when  they  get  into  trouble — to 
say,  "God  has  forsaken  me!" 

Change  Youe  Cry 

Change  your  cry.  Say,  "My,  but  it  is  dark,  but  by  God's 
grace  I  will  reach  my  puny  hand  up  through  the  clouds  and 
touch  the  hand  of  Jesus,  for  His  hand  is  stretched  out  to  me. 
Say,  "If  God  be  for  me,  who  can  be  against  me?"  When  you 
believe  it,  you  are  taking  sides  against  the  devil  with  God ;  and 
the  man  who  will  say,  "I  know  God  is  true,  whether  every 
man  is  a  liar  and  everything  has  gone  to  pieces,  I  know  God 
is  faithful";  and  whether  you  feel  it  or  not,  it  will  not  be 
long  before  you  feel  a  tug  at  the  other  end  of  the  rope  and 
the  first  thing  you  know  you  will  be  above  the  clouds  and  sail- 
ing out.  David  found  the  truth  and  by  the  Holy  Ghost  sent 
it  down  for  our  help.    So  let  us  not  make  the  mistake. 

Remember,  he  says:  "I  complained  and  my  spirit  was  over- 
whelmed." Will  you  take  the  first  step  and  stop  your  com- 
plaining ? 

First  Get  a  Foothold 
Take  men  to-day  who  are  philosophizing,  writing  books 
against  God;  they  have  no  foothold;  forever  they  seek  one. 


OUT  OF  THE  CAVE 


73 


You  will  find  they  are  like  a  heavily  burdened  traveler  on  a 
mountain  trail  that  is  slippery  and  frozen;  their  very  doubt 
and  complaint  freezes  the  pathways,  there  is  no  place  for 
their  feet.  When  you  complain  against  the  best  Friend,  the 
tender,  merciful  God,  the  Ruler  of  the  universe,  there  isn't  a 
place  in  the  world  for  you  to  put  your  foot. 

"But  without  faith  it  is  impossible  to  please  Him;  for  he  that 
cometh  to  God  must  believe  that  He  is,  and  that  He  is  a  re- 
warder  of  them  that  diligently  seek  Him,"  Heb.  11:6. 

Be  Still 

Learn  to  keep  still,  to  keep  your  mouth  shut.  God  Himself 
lets  the  clouds  blow  around,  but  the  clouds  will  even  blow  over 
after  a  while  if  you  will  just  learn  to  keep  still.  God  says 
the  man  that  waits  on  the  Lord  "shall  exchange  his  strength." 
I  have  prayed  many  a  time  when  it  seemed  that  the  clouds 
were  so  thick  you  couldn't  pray  through  them,  but  you  can 
do  as  some  of  you  may  have  done  if  you  were  ever  lost  in  a 
dust  storm,  a  sand  storm  on  the  prairie:  duck  your  head  and 
hold  on  until  the  wind  doesn't  blow  so  hard. 

Oh  how  God  has  again  and  again  in  His  Word  called  our 
attention  to  His  great  ability  to  fight  for  us,  if  we  but  learn 
how  to  take  our  hands  off:  and  trust  and  be  still — not  "watch- 
ful waiting,"  but  an  active  trust  in  stillness.  Hear  His  re- 
assuring words  in  Second  Chronicles  20:17: 

"Ye  shall  not  need  to  fight  in  this  battle;  set  yourselves, 
stand  ye  still,  and  see  the  salvation  of  the  Lord  with  you,  O 
Judah  and  Jerusalem;  fear  not,  nor  be  dismayed;  tomorrow 
go  out  against  them,  for  the  Lord  will  be  with  you." 

Our  Tongues 

So  much  of  our  trouble  comes  because  of  our  tongues;  we 
make  so  many  statements  against  God.  We  complain  of  cir- 
cumstances, we  talk  about  people  so  that  it  takes  months  after 
we  get  right  to  straighten  up  all  we  said  before.  When  we 
get  into  trouble  it  seems  to  be  part  of  the  plan  of  humanity 
to  spread  it  around,  go  and  load  it  on  somebody  else.  We  go 
to  people;  we  try  to  lay  our  burdens  somewhere  else  instead 


74 


SERMONS  BY  PAUL  RADER 


of  waiting  before  God.  God  says  the  man  that  waits  on  Him 
"shall  mount  up  on  wings  as  eagles."  And  thank  God,  it  is 
true.    Wait  on  God,  and  God  will  show  Himself. 

David's  First  Step  Up 

David  saw  his  mistake  of  complaining,  and  as  soon  as  he 
saw  it  he  began  to  talk  in  a  different  kind  of  language.  "I 
have  considered  the  days  of  old."  He  leaves  his  feelings  and 
runs  back,  oh  away  back  as  far  as  he  can,  to  facts,  facts. 

Friend,  that  is  a  mighty  good  thing  to  do,  to  go  back  as 
far  as  you  can  go  back  with  God  in  your  memory  or  knowl- 
edge, and  then  just  let  God  trail  you  along,  showing  you  facts. 

Grandfather's  Experience 
I  remember  my  grandfather,  when  I  was  a  boy,  asking  me 
to  sit  down  and  sing  to  him: 

"I  saw  a  wayworn  traveler, 
In  tattered  garments  clad, 
And  struggling  up  the  mountain, 
It  seemed  that  he  was  sad." 

He  made  me  sing  all  the  verses  in  his  little  old  hymn  book, 
a  little  old  square  affair,  well  used;  grandmother  had  put  five 
different  covers  of  calico  on  the  back  of  it.  He'd  sit  back  all 
ready  and  say,  "Sing  it,  son."  I  loved  the  chorus  part,  then: 
"Palms  of  victory,  crowns  of  glory,"  but  I  remember  he  loved 
a  certain  verse  best: 

"Then  casting  his  eyes  backward 
O'er  the  path  which  he  had  trod, 
He  shouted  loud  Hosannas 
And  praises  unto  God." 

I  remember  as  I  sang  that  part  I  saw  the  tears  running  out 
of  his  big  blue  eyes,  and  he  clapped  his  hands  together,  and 
said,  "Glory  to  God!  Glory  to  God!  I  never  will  forget  it. 
And  then  he  said  to  me  this:  "Some  day,  when  you  are  older, 
you  will  get  to  a  place  where  it  seems  like  God  has  forsaken 
you,  but  son,  if  you  ever  do,  just  sit  still  a  minute  and  look 
to  the  time  when  God  first  touched  your  life.    It  may  be 


OUT  OF  THE  CAVE 


75 


slippery  then,  but  you  will  shout  as  you  look  back."  There 
he  was,  in  the  last  years  of  his  life,  but  he  could  look  back 
and  see  all  the  way  God  had  led  him,  and  shout. 

So  David  says,  "I  began  to  get  out  of  the  hole  that  way.  I 
began  to  look  back  to  the  old  days,  look  back  way  down  there 
where  God  called  me,  and  then  my  soul  began  to  be  encour- 
aged. And  I  said,  'This  is  my  infirmity'  " — in  other  words, 
"I  am  a  fool."  It's  a  nice  thing,  you  know,  to  call  a  head 
that  won't  work  right  "infirm,"  but  it  is  a  better  thing  to  call 
it  a  fool. 

"Lord,  I  am  a  fool,  sitting  here  complaining  against  the 
very  God  who  has  been  working  for  me  all  my  life;  I  am  a 
fool.  Lord,  my  curls  are  all  matted,  my  poor  old  clothes  are 
all  twisted,  I  am  sick  of  the  old  cave,  but  Lord,  it  is  my  in- 
firmity and  my  foolishness." 

David's  Second  Step 
Now  David  takes  another  upward  step:  "I  will  remember 
the  years  of  the  right  hand  of  the  Most  High." 
"What  do  you  mean,  David?" 

"Why,"  he  says,  "I  will  remember  the  times  in  my  life  when 
I  felt  God's  hand,  that  hand  of  strength,  that  grip  in  my 
life.    I  will  go  back  and  remember  those  times." 

"All  right,  David,  start  ahead.  Let's  see  you  do  it." 

"Oh,"  he  says,  "I  am  standing  here,  Lord,  an  older  man 
now,  but  I  remember  the  day  when  a  man  walked  into  the 
field  while  I  was  herding  sheep  as  a  little  boy,  and  somebody 
cried  out  'David!'  Just  the  way  they  called  it,"  he  said,  "my 
heart  turned  over;  I  had  been  talking  with  God.  'David!' 
they  cried,  and  I  got  up  from  the  ground  and  said,  'What  do 
you  want?' 

"  'There  is  a  man  here,  Samuel,  come  to  your  father's  house 
to  look  all  the  boys  over,  and  he  wants  to  look  you  over.' 

"I  fixed  my  little  red  head  the  best  I  could,  and  went  to  the 
house  and  there  were  all  the  boys  lined  up.  There  was  my 
big  brother  at  the  head,  and  he  said,  'What  in  the  world  do 
you  want  with  that  little  scrap?  What  in  the  world  do  you 
want  him  for?' 


76 


SERMONS  BY  PAUL  RADER 


"I  remember  Samuel,  a  godly  man,  turned  to  me  and  said: 
"The  Lord  says :  "Arise,  anoint  him,  for  this  is  he  " 7 ;  and 
there,  while  the  boys  were  looking,  he  took  oil  and  poured  it 
on  my  head  and  anointed  me,  and  the  Spirit  of  God  was  upon 
me,  from  that  day." 

Get  a  Fresh  Start 

Oh,  friends,  go  back  to  the  time  when  God  pulled  you 
away  from  the  crowd  and  separated  you  unto  Himself:  the 
days  "of  the  right  hand  of  the  Most  High." 

David  said,  "I  will  go  back  to  that  time  of  the  right  hand 
of  God,  when  Samuel  came  to  our  house — came  out,  anointed 
me  king.  I  may  be  on  the  outside  this  afternoon,  hiding  in 
this  old  cave,  hunted  by  Saul  and  persecuted  by  the  devil, 
but  thank  God,  Samuel  anointed  me  as  king,  and  whether  I  feel 
like  it  or  not,  I  am  going  to  be  a  king!" 

Friend,  when  Jesus  has  saved  you,  and  you  are  discouraged, 
say:  "Whether  I  feel  like  it  or  not,  though  I  may  feel  down 
and  discouraged,  Jesus  saved  me  one  day,  and  I  am  the  child 
of  a  King,  and  I  am  going  to  glory,  thank  God!  My  poor 
body  may  not  feel  like  it,  but  bless  God,  one  of  these  days 
through  the  open  portals  of  heaven  I  will  sweep  in  and  sit 
down  with  Jesus  Christ  at  the  marriage  supper  of  the  Lamb. 
Glory  to  God!" 

Friend,  you  will  soon  get  out  of  the  cave.  You  will  have  a 
shout  after  a  while.  Your  very  skin  will  begin  to  change. 
Your  bones  will  begin  to  wax  well  again. 

A  Real  Lion 

Then  David  said:  "That  isn't  all,  old  devil;  take  some 
more.  Listen:  I  remember  a  few  days  after  that,  being  with 
my  sheep,  and  a  lion  came  along;  and  I  was  a  poor  little 
frail  fellow,  but  it  was  my  business  to  take  care  of  those 
sheep.  And  when  that  lion  came  along,  God  just  stirred  me 
on  the  inside  and  said  'David,  grab  him.' 

"But  Lord,  I  am  such  a  little  fellow." 

"Grab  him!" 


OUT  OF  THE  CAVE 


77 


And  something  gave  me  nerve  enough  to  grab  the  lion 
and  I  broke  his  jaw.  I  don't  know  how  I  did  it,  but  some- 
thing came  into  me  that  day,  and  I  slew  the  lion." 

A  Real  Bear 

"And  I  remember  the  day  the  bear  came  up,  and  I  slew  him 
the  same  way,  and  my,  I  was  scared  when  I  saw  him  there 
dead.  But  I  looked  up,  and  said,  'God,  you  did  it.'  Yes, 
sir,  I  am  going  to  remember  the  days  of  old.  I  may  have  old 
matted  hair  now,  and  Saul  on  the  throne,  but  God  is  going  to 
make  good  some  day;  He  didn't  bring  me  all  this  way  for 
nothing." 

A  Real  Giant 

And  then  he  said,  "Yes,  I  remember  something  else,  old 
devil;  that  day  I  went  down  to  the  army,  to  carry  some  food 
to  my  brothers,  and  they  were  looking  for  somebody  to  kill 
that  old  giant.  I  went  up  to  Saul,  and  he  says,  'What  do 
you  want  to  go  out  and  fight  that  giant  for  V  I  felt  it  again-  — 
that  same  spirit  just  boiling  in  me. 

"Saul  said  to  me:  'Have  you  got  any  medals V 

"Sure,  I  have." 

"  'How  do  you  know  you  can  kill  him  V 

"I  have  killed  my  lion  and  my  bear,  and  sure  as  you  live, 
I  can  kill  that  old  giant.  'The  Lord  that  delivered  me  out 
of  the  paw  of  the  lion  and  out  of  the  paw  of  the  bear,  He 
will  deliver  me  out  of  the  hand  of  this  Philistine/  "  I  Sam. 
17:37. 

No  Armour 

"And  Saul  says,  'You  better  put  my  armour  on  you/  and  he 
tried  to  put  his  armour  on  me,  but  I  threw  it  off,  and  took 
God,  and  my  little  sling,  and  threw  it  around  my  head,  and 
I  said,  'I  may  miss,  but  God  can't  miss — let  her  go  V  Round 
my  head  it  went,  and  it  wiggled  around,  but  God  took  hold  of 
it  and  shot  it  straight  at  the  giant,  hitting  him  square  between 
the  eyes." 

"I  came  back  with  his  old  head  dangling,  and  said  to  Saul: 
'Here  I  am/ 


78 


SERMONS  BY  PAUL  RADER 


"And  Saul  says,   'Who  are  you,  you  poor  little  fellow?' 

"  'I  am  the  son  of  Jesse;  that's  all  I  am/  I  answered." 

It  didn't  take  David  long  to  show  the  first  essential  of  a 
servant  of  God.  It  took  just  one  thought,  and  he  took  the 
lowest  place:  just  "the  son  of  Jesse." 

"I  am  the  son  of  Jesse."  .Yes,  David  had  real  humility  in 
him.  Slew  a  giant  by  the  power  of  God,  then  walked  up  in 
front  of  the  king,  the  great  giant's  head  dangling  from  his 
hand,  the  whole  army  in  consternation  and  admiration  and 
envy,  but  David  asks  for  no  praise.  Most  of  us  would  have 
thrown  out  our  chests  and  said  "Who  am  I?  I'm  the  fellow 
who  just  killed  that  giant!"  But  no,  David  says:  "I  am  the 
son  of  Jesse — just  a  little  fellow  that  came  from  the  sheep." 

Praise  God  for  the  power  of  God,  but  bless  God  for  the 
humility  that  comes  of  God  and  gives  God  the  glory  for  the 
whole  business. 

See  How  God  Freed  You 
David  said:  "I  will  remember  the  right  hand  of  God." 
David  is  getting  out  of  the  cave,  as  sure  as  you  live.  And 
you  will  get  out  of  the  cave  if  you  go  back  there  and  see  how 
God  freed  you,  gave  you  power  over  a  habit  that  used  to 
get  you  down.  Oh,  when  I  think  of  it  to-day,  I  could  go 
through  the  skylight  shouting  the  praises  of  God  for  deliver- 
ance from  the  hand  of  the  lion  and  the  bear  that  used  to  live 
in  my  old  breast.  You  may  make  fun  of  preaching  a  life  of 
victory,  but  I'll  have  to  shout  the  praises  of  Jesus  Christ 
who  has  delivered  me  from  the  lion  and  the  bear  that  lived 
in  this  breast. 

David's  Third  Step 

In  the  next  place,  David  said:  "I  will  remember  the  works 
of  the  Lord;  surely  I  will  remember  Thy  wonders  of  old." 

So  he  goes  back  and  recalls  the  time  when  God  took  Abra- 
ham, and  said  to  him:  "Abraham,  come  across  the  brook, 
walk  through  the  length  and  the  breadth  of  this  land  and  I'll 
give  you  all  you  can  see,  forever."  He  recalls  the  time  God 
brought  Isaac  into  the  world,  miraculously,  and  he  recalls  the 
time  when  God  promised  Abraham  his  children,  when  he  did 


OUT  OF  THE  CAVE 


79 


not  even  have  a  son,  and  then  told  him  they  should  be  like 
the  sands  of  the  sea  for  number,  and  should  come  out  of 
Egypt  after  they  had  been  in  bondage.  He  recalls  the  works 
of  Moses,  the  plagues  of  Egypt,  and  sees  Moses  stand  and 
stretch  out  his  hand  over  the  sea,  and  speak  in  the  name  of 
God — and  the  waters  divided  themselves  and  the  very  people 
of  God  from  whom  David  himself  had  crossed  the  Red  Sea 
and  come  into  Canaan  Land.  He  could  take  the  dirt  from 
beneath  his  feet  and  say :  "Here  I  am,  hiding  in  the  very  land 
God  has  given  to  my  father." 

A  Holy  Hush 
Surely  there  must  have  come  over  him  the  hush  of  the  Holy 
Ghost,  and  the  shoes  began  to  come  off  his  feet,  and  he  got 
down  and  began  to  praise  God.  "The  very  dirt  I  am  on  be- 
longs to  God,"  he  must  have  cried  out.  "It  has  been  pur- 
chased by  the  power  of  God.  The  very  cave  I  have  been  in  is 
the  sanctuary  of  God.  This  is  Canaan  Land  where  I  am. 
Saul  may  be  on  the  throne  now,  but  David  shall  be  on  the 
throne.  Out  of  David  shall  come  the  very  Christ  of  God  and 
sit  on  the  throne  of  the  whole  world — forever!" 

Sees  a  Coming  King 
David  not  only  began  to  look  at  Canaan  Land,  but  he  be- 
gan to  lift  his  eyes  up  to  God,  and  maybe  it  was  in  this  dark 
hour  that  God  spoke  to  him  of  the  mighty  things  to  come, 
when  the  Messiah,  Jesus  Christ,  would  sit  on  his  throne,  as 
Peter  says  in  his  sermon  at  Pentecost: 

"Men  and  brethren,  let  me  freely  speak  unto  you  of  the  pa- 
triach  David,  that  he  is  both  dead  and  buried,  and  his  sepul- 
cher  is  with  us  unto  this  day.  Therefore  being  a  prophet, 
and  knowing  that  God  had  sworn  with  an  oath  to  him,  that 
of  the  fruit  of  his  loins,  according  to  the  flesh,  he  would  raise 
up  Christ  to  sit  on  his  throne,"  Acts  2:29,30. 

Out  of  the  cave — oh,  he  got  a  vision  of  the  coming  of  Jesus 
Christ  into  this  world  as  King  of  kings  and  Lord  of  lords, 
and  praise  God,  the  old  cave  became  a  palace — "and  prisons 


80 


SERMONS  BY  PAUL  RADER 


will  palaces  prove,  if  Jesus  will  dwell  with  me  there."  God 
came  down  to  meet  him  in  the  cave — in  the  cave — and  he  be- 
lieved himself  in  truth  a  king,  every  inch  a  king,  a  son  of 
God  and  the  one  through  whom  Jesus  was  to  come,  himself 
the  possessor  of  the  throne  which  Jesus  Christ  should  come 
and  reign  forever. 

And  he  lifted  up  his  hands  to  God  and  began  to  praise 
God:  "Why,  Lord,  you  led  Moses  and  Aaron,  you  took  them 
and  led  the  children  forth  as  a  shepherd  would  lead  his  sheep, 
and  I  am  safe,  I  am  perfectly  safe.  God  has  His  plan  made, 
and  I  shall  not  fail.   All  that  He  has  promised  He  will  do." 

He  began  to  pull  at  his  old  garments,  straighten  them  out, 
and  the  men  began  to  say,  "David,  what's  the  matter?" 

"You  needn't  worry  about  me  any  longer,"  cries  David.  "I 
don't  care  if  I  am  dirty.    Glory  to  God,  I  am  a  king." 

The  Cave  Crowd 
And  the  poor  old  bunch  that  David  had  gathered  around 
him  began  to  kneel  and  swear  their  allegiance  to  him. 

"And  every  one  that  was  in  distress,  and  every  one  that 
was  in  debt,  and  every  one  that  was  discontented,  gathered 
themselves  unto  him;  and  he  became  a  captain  over  them;  and 
there  were  with  him  about  four  hundred  men,"  I  Sam.  22:2. 

He  turns  to  this  peculiar  crowd  and  says,  "You're  a  dirty 
looking  crowd  now,  you  look  like  has-beens  now,  but  wait 
until  I  am  a  king.  We  are  a  bunch  of  forlorn  and  forsaken 
looking  folks  now,  but  God  is  going  to  take  me  out  of  this 
cave  and  put  me  on  the  throne,  and  I  will  remember  all  of 
you  when  I  come  in." 

Yes,  and  he  did  what  he  promised  to  do:  made  them  gen- 
erals and  rulers  of  the  land;  and  when  Jesus  comes  to  sit 
on  David's  throne  He  will  do  the  very  same  thing.  Men  who 
were  drunks,  women  who  were  harlots,  despised  and  rejected 
ones,  down-and-out,  who  has  been  cleansed  in  His  Blood,  will 
rule  and  reign  with  Him.  Hallelujah! 

Oh,  friends,  get  out  of  the  cave  this  morning!  Jesus  is 
coming  back,  and  when  He  does  the  crowd  that  is  being  made 


OUT  OF  THE  CAVE 


81 


fun  of  here,  the  poor  of  the  earth,  the  despised,  the  rejected, 
the  turned-aside,  will  come  into  their  full  inheritance.  Jesus 
says,  "Keep  faithful,  and  never  forget  that  I  am  King  of 
kings  and  Lord  of  lords."  Yes,  He  is  coming  back  again. 
Many  think  of  Jesus  now  just  as  the  lowly  One  of  Nazareth. 
He  is  only  a  man  to  the  world;  but  to  us — oh,  beloved,  we,  as 
Paul  says,  are  "looking  for  that  blessed  hope  and  the  glorious 
appearing  of  the  great  God,  and  our  Saviour  Jesus  Christ." 

It  may  look  dark,  war  is  all  around  you,  the  cave  and  the 
darkness,  but  keep  faithful.  Caves  and  all  they  mean  will 
soon  be  a  thing  of  the  past.  By  Thy  grace  we  will  wait  for 
Thee.  0  King  of  kings,  from  glory  this  morning!  Friends, 
He  is  coming  soon,  glory  to  God,  and  we  will  be  caught  up  to 
meet  Him,  and  later  come  back  to  this  old  earth  to  reign  with 
Him. 

"Though  the  cave  has  held  you  captive, 

Jesus  still  is  near, 

He  is  true  to  every  promise, 

Cheer,  my  comrades,  cheer. 

Hold  the  fort,  for  I  am  coming, 

Jesus  signals  still, 

Wave  the  answer  back  to  heaven, 

By  Thy  grace  we  will!" 


KINGDOM  RECRUITING 

"The  Kingdom  of  Heaven  Is  Like" 

These  words  fall  from  the  lips  of  Jesus  again  and  again: 
"The  kingdom  of  heaven  is  like" — and  are  recorded  for  us  in 
the  thirteenth  chapter  of  Matthew.  Picture  Him  standing  there 
in  the  little  boat  as  it  rocks  quietly  in  the  water,  and  before 
Him  crowded  right  up  to  the  water's  edge  a  great  multitude, 
listening  intently  to  every  sentence  from  His  lips. 

"The  kingdom  of  heaven."  These  are  surprising  words. 
Is  there  then  to  be  a  kingdom  heaven  born,  heaven  bought, 
and  heaven  sent?  That  is  exactly  what  Jesus  is  saying,  and 
furthermore  He  is  showing  by  speaking  to  them  in  parables 
just  how  it  is  to  come. 

Like  Breaking  Waves 
His  words  roll  to  them  like  tremendous  breakers  along  the 
coast  in  a  storm.  Six  times  these  words  break  on  their  tars — 
"The  kingdom  of  heaven  is  like" — and  each  time  accompanying 
the  words  comes  a  parable  to  explain  the  kingdom  to  those 
who  have  ears  to  hear.  As  the  great  waves  on  the  beach  break 
suddenly  and  then  burst  into  foam  and  run  up  the  sands,  so 
this  phrase  "The  kingdom  of  heaven  is  like"  would  break  and 
then  would  foam  forth  the  explaining  parable.  With  each 
breaking  wave  the  kingdom  program  becomes  clearer. 

The  Program  of  Man 

These  waves  are  beating  too  against  a  stubborn  world  pro- 
gram of  man.  In  the  breast  of  the  men  before  him  is  a  pro- 
gram of  the  earth  earthy,  of  the  flesh  fleshly,  and  of  the  devil 
devilish.  There  is  there  before  Him  in  living,  breathing  men 
a  kingdom  of  this  world  and  He  has  come  to  start  a  kingdom 
of  heaven.  He  is  finally,  when  He  has  gotten  His  subjects, 
to  come  back  to  this  world  and  set  up  His  kingdom  with  all 
authority  and  power. 


84 


SERMONS  BY  PAUL  RADER 


His  Kingdom  Here 
Yes!  Hear  me  if  you  will.  He  will  set  up  His  kingdom 
right  here  in  this  world;  right  here  where  the  Garden  of  Eden 
grew;  right  here  where  the  devil  tempted  Adam  and  Eve  and 
they  fell;  right  here  where  the  curse  came,  where  Adam 
walked  out  of  the  Garden  and  because  of  sin  started  to  work 
and  earn  his  bread  by  the  sweat  of  his  brow;  right  here  where 
Eve  because  of  sin  brought  forth  her  first-born  in  pain  and 
anguish;  right  here  where  because  of  the  fall  sin  entered  and 
the  devil  became  the  prince  of  this  world,  and  Cain  killed  his 
brother  Abel  and  went  out  from  the  presence  of  God  marked 
with  the  sickening  mark  of  a  murderer.  Yes,  He  will  set  up 
His  kingdom  right  here  where  passion  has  reeked  its  awful 
toll  of  infamy,  here  where  hearts  have  been  broken,  where 
man  has  fought  his  brother,  cheated  his  brother,  lied  about  his 
brother,  robbed  his  brother,  where  he  has  hated,  envied,  cov- 
eted, blasphemed  God,  laughed  at  His  laws,  poopooed  His 
miracles,  even  denied  His  very  existence,  and  tried  to  tear  His 
blessed  Book,  the  Bible,  to  pieces,  and  tried  to  choke  the  faith 
of  babes  and  clog  the  minds  of  the  young  that  would  seek 
after  Him.  Yes,  praise  God,  Christ  is  to  set  up  His  kingdom 
here  where  His  rich  holy  Blood  flowed  from  His  side,  here 
where  He  suffered,  here  where  He  rose  again.  Yes,  it  is  here 
where  the  nations  are  warring  for  supremacy  that  He  will 
take  His  throne  and  reign  in  righteousness. 

Recruiting 

This  great  stupendous  event  is  in  the  future,  and  may  be 
very,  very  close,  but  the  part  of  the  program  now  being  car- 
ried out  before  the  kingdom  shall  be  ushered  in  is  the  recruit- 
ing of  subjects.  The  Gospel  is  the  good  news,  telling  how 
whosoever  will  can  become  a  subject  of  this  kingdom. 

Man's  Belief 

The  belief  of  the  kingdom  of  this  world  presided  over  by 
the  devil  is  that  man  in  and  of  himself  is  abundantly  suffi- 
cient, that  his  brain,  his  brawn,  his  wonder-working  ingenuity, 


KINGDOM  RECRUITING 


85 


his  will,  can  guide  him  safely  through  all  the  waves  that  roll 
against  him,  and  men  speak  of  this  as  the  first  law  of  nature, 
the  great  law  of  self-preservation.  The  outcome  of  all  this 
is  what  they  love  to  call  natural  religion,  and  of  course  in  this 
religion  man  and  man  alone  is  the  god.  There,  so-called  cul- 
ture and  learning  have  led  them  away  from  idols  of  wood 
and  stone,  neither  do  they  call  the  wind,  the  sun,  or  the  moon 
by  names  to  indicate  them  as  gods,  but  they  deify  the  reason 
of  man.  They  worship  the  works  of  his  hands  in  invention 
and  art,  in  science  and  industry.  They  are  pleased  to  refer 
to  this  as  their  second  law  of  nature,  which  is  the  law  of 
self-expression. 

The  Last  Law  of  Nature 

There  is  only  one  law  of  nature  left  and  this  they  do  not 
care  to  talk  of,  for  it  is  an  awful  nightmare.  This  is  the  law 
of  self-mastery.  Oh,  hide  your  face  now.  Stop  your  ears. 
Close  your  eyes,  and  try  not  to  think.  The  shock  will  be  aw- 
ful if  you  are  a  devotee  of  the  god  called  man.  He  has  lost 
all  control  over  himself  and  must  yield  all  his  houses,  all  his 
land,  all  his  power,  all  his  pomp,  all  his  hopes,  all  his  plans, 
all  his  loves  and  labors  to  a  strong  enemy  called  death.  He 
may  drink  of  the  best  concoctions  of  his  genius,  he  may  hold 
with  all  his  might,  with  his  wonderful  will,  to  life,  but  death 
will  take  him.    Man  is  not  master  of  himself. 

Life  and  a  Kingdom 

Jesus  came  to  this  world  and  from  this  little  boat  throws 
out  the  great  life-giving  promises  of  His  kingdom.  He  had 
no  subjects  for  His  kingdom  when  He  opened  His  eyes  in 
that  little  manger  cradle,  for  all  men  are  the  subjects  of  sin 
and  death.  There  is  not  a  one  that  is  not  a  born  and  willing 
subject  of  the  kingdom  over  which  the  devil  is  ruling;  not  a 
one  who  is  not  under  the  dominion  of  sin. 

Hear  what  God  has  to  say  about  this  statement:  "By  one 
man  sin  entered  into  the  world  and  death  by  sin,  and  so  death 
passed  upon  all  men,  for  that  all  have  sinned." 


86 


SERMONS  BY  PAUL  RADER 


Again  hear  God's  Word:  "But  we  are  all  as  an  unclean 
thing,  and  all  our  righteousnesses  are  as  filthy  rags,  and  we 
all  do  fade  as  a  leaf;  and  our  iniquities  like  the  wind  have 
taken  us  away."  And  still  again  God  says :  "We  all  like  sheep 
have  gone  astray,  we  have  turned  every  one  to  his  own  way, 
and  the  Lord  hath  laid  on  Him  the  iniquity  of  us  all."  We 
see  then  that  Jesus  started  without  a  subject  and  if  He  was  to 
have  subjects  He  must  get  them  from  the  ranks  of  the  devil, 
who  in  league  with  human  nature  and  as  prince  of  the  world 
sits  in  the  place  of  world  power,  and  by  his  power  of  tempta- 
tion holds  the  hearts  of  men  captives  to  sin,  the  world,  their 
flesh  and  himself. 

He  Must  Create  His  Subjects 
Jesus  then  before  He  can  have  a  kingdom  must  have  sub- 
jects, and  before  He  can  have  subjects  He  must  set  them 
free  from  their  old  leader  and  master  and  make  them  new 
creatures.  This  is  the  first  task  to  which  He  directs  Himself 
when  John  has  baptized  Him  in  Jordan,  and  God  has  bap- 
tized Him  with  the  Holy  Ghost.  He  goes  immediately  into 
the  wilderness,  and  there  after  fasting  until  His  flesh,  in  al- 
most death,  calls,  cries  for  food,  He  meets  the  devil. 

The  battle  is  on.  The  devil  offers  all  he  has,  even  to  the 
kingdom  of  this  world  lying  in  his  power,  if  Christ  will  but 
fall  down  and  worship  him.  All  the  deviPs  temptations  and 
pleadings  are  in  vain.  Christ  will  have  nothing  to  do  with 
him.  The  battle  is  over.  Christ  is  true  to  His  Father  and 
does  His  will. 

Christ  Is  Victor 

Christ  returns  to  announce  that  He  is  the  victor,  as  the 
Scriptures  had  prophesied  He  would  be.  Now  He  is  ready 
to  announce  His  program  as  God  had  written  it  down  in  His 
Word,  and  arises  in  a  little  church  the  first  Sunday  and  reads 
out  of  the  Bible  thus  about  Himself:  "The  Spirit  of  the 
Lord  is  upon  Me,  because  He  hath  anointed  Me  to  preach 
the  Gospel  to  the  poor,  He  hath  sent  Me  to  heal  the  broken- 
hearted, to  preach  deliverance  to  the  captives,  and  recovering 


KINGDOM  RECRUITING 


87 


of  sight  to  the  blind,  to  set  at  liberty  them  that  are  bruised, 
to  preach  the  acceptable  year  of  the  Lord.  *  *  And  He  closed 
the  Book  and  sat  down  *  *  and  He  began  to  say  unto  them, 
This  day  is  this  Scripture  fulfilled  in  your  ears." 

He  has  conquered  the  devil  then.  He  is  to  be  the  Deliverer. 
The  prince  of  this  world  before  whom  every  other  living  soul 
has  had  to  bow  and  become  a  sinner  has  found  One  now  who 
will  have  nothing  to  do  with  him.  He  is  an  active  victor, 
going  on  to  offer  help  to  any  that  are  bound  by  satan,  and 
are  his  subjects. 

To  Destroy  the  Devil's  Work 

Jesus  Christ  stands  there  talking  to  the  multitude  from  the 
little  boat  then  as  the  conqueror  of  the  devil.  The  Scriptures 
go  farther  and  say  that  He  was  "manifested  to  destroy  the 
works  of  the  devil."  So  this,  then,  is  the  first  battle  Jesus 
Christ  had  entered  on  His  campaign  of  conquering  and  be- 
fore He  finishes  He  is  to  destroy  the  works  even  of  the  devil : 
the  very  results  of  sin?  Yes!  The  devil  then  I  recognize  as 
my  enemy,  but  he  has  been  defeated  by  Jesus  Christ  who 
comes  lifting  His  victorious  banner,  asking  all  who  would  be 
free  from  sin  to  enlist,  and  become  His  subjects  in  this  new 
kingdom  He  is  to  bring  in  when  He  has  gotten  all  His  subjects 
from  all  lands. 

Jesus  Offers  Joy 

The  world  with  all  its  allurements  and  charms  for  sin,  its 
amusements  that  take  hold  on  hell,  its  fascinations  that  exalt 
man  and  the  devil  and  forget  God,  all  this,  which  is  the  world, 
is  my  enemy.  It  was  all  offered  to  Jesus  but  He  turned  it 
down  flat.  He  has  conquered  the  world,  and  offers  instead 
of  worldly  joys  a  joy  which  He  alone  can  give,  but  which  the 
world  cannot  give  and  cannot  take  away.  Jesus  then  raises 
His  banner  of  joy  and  offers  it  as  lasting  and  real,  without  a 
sting,  and  calls  to  men  to  leave  the  world  and  its  pleasures 
and  the  devil  that  is  running  them  and  enlist  under  His  banner 
of  joy  that  will  last  forever.  This  world  gave  Him  nothing, 
but  He  could  be  filled  with  the  deepest  kind  of  joy  and  peace 


88 


SERMONS  BY  PAUL  RADER 


without  needing  anything  the  world  could  give  or  the  devil 
had  to  offer,  Everlasting  peace  and  joy  is  on  the  banner  un- 
der which  He  asks  subjects  to  enlist  and  this  same  blessed 
banner  is  to  float  over  the  palaces  of  His  kingdom  forever. 

The  Final  Enemy 

At  last  the  hour  comes  in  the  life  of  Jesus  when  He  must 
go  against  the  enemy  called  death.  Jesus  has  broken  the  pow- 
er of  sin  by  conquering  all  the  deviFs  temptations  and  offer- 
ing His  conquering  power  to  His  subjects.  But  all  mankind 
are  under  the  power  of  death:  the  awful  wages  of  sin.  If 
Christ  is  to  have  subjects  this  bondage  of  death  must  be  brok- 
en, and  He  must  be  able  to  offer  life  instead  of  death  to  those 
who  come  under  His  banners. 

He  has  made  His  boasts  and  the  devil  and  his  subjects  are 
made  and  planning  to  put  Him  out  of  the  way.  Their  very 
anger  and  wrath  and  love  of  murder  is  to  be  the  means  in 
God's  hands  of  letting  Jesus  get  into  death  so  He  can  conquer 
it.  His  very  enemy  the  devil  is  pushing  a  program  of  hate 
that  will  cause  men  to  kill  Jesus,  and  by  the  deviFs  very  ef- 
forts to  destroy  Him  he  is  giving  Him  the  great  chance  for 
which  He  has  come  into  the  world:  namely,  to  die  man's 
death  and  conquer  death  by  rising  victor  over  it.  He  is  to  be 
the  Lamb  of  God  that  taketh  away  the  sin  of  the  world.  The 
hour  comes.  They  nail  Him  to  the  cross  and  in  the  dark, 
with  God's  face  turned  away  from  Him,  He  dies,  taking  the 
place  of  men  with  all  their  sin. 

He  Pays  the  Debt 

The  wages  of  sin  is  death,  and  He  takes  all  that  wages  for 
a  whole  race  on  Himself.  He  dies  an  accursed  thing  of  sin, 
with  God's  face  turned  from  Him  as  the  curse.  He  pays  the 
old  debt  that  every  subject  whom  He  will  afterward  get  owes, 
and  the  subject  can  come  to  Him  with  no  old  scores  unpaid  to 
his  old  master,  sin. 

Let  us  say,  for  example,  that  I  wish  to  have  a  young  fellow 
who  is  working  hard  for  a  certain  firm  come  and  work  for 
me,  but  when  I  approach  him  on  the  subject  he  tells  me 


KINGDOM  RECRUITING 


89 


that  he  is  heavily  in  debt  to  the  company.  Before  he  can 
come  to  me  those  debts  must  be  paid,  and  if  I  pay  all  his 
debts  and  tell  him  he  can  go  free  he  is  then  in  a  position  to 
work  for  me.  Jesus  by  His  death  not  only  paid  the  debt  of 
sin  which  His  subjects  owe,  but  He  conquered  death  itself, 
and  arose  from  the  grave  the  living  victor  over  it,  and  with 
this  tremendous,  staggering,  offer  of  sharing  His  victory  with 
any  who  would  believe  Him  and  become  His  subjects,  He 
called  for  recruits.  He  has  added  life  then  to  the  list  of  vic- 
tories on  His  banner,  and  offers  to  those  who  will  become  His 
subjects  life  instead  of  death.  Praise  God!  "Death  is  swal- 
lowed up  in  victory,"  as  the  Scriptures  say. 

Flesh  Conquered 

When  Jesus  consented  to  enter  death  for  humanity  and  con- 
quer it,  He  did  not  consult  with  His  flesh.  The  flesh,  the 
natural  mind,  draws  back  from  death,  but  Jesus  delivered  up 
the  flesh  to  the  death  of  that  shameful  cross,  and  became  vic- 
tor over  the  flesh. 

When  the  blessed  feet  of  Jesus  left  the  earth  and  with  that 
resurrection  body  He  made  His  victorious  way  back  to  the 
throne  of  God,  He  left  behind  Him  a  complete  victory  over 
the  world,  the  flesh  and  the  devil.  This  all  may  have  who 
believe  Him,  they  may  have  it  here  and  now.  He  conquered 
death  and  Himself  became  the  first-fruits  of  them  who  have 
slept  the  sleep  of  death,  and  when  He  comes  again  before 
long  to  get  His  subjects  and  usher  in  the  kingdom,  He  will 
give  all  His  subjects  (those  who  have  left  the  devil's  ranks 
and  the  ranks  of  the  world)  a  glorious  body  like  unto  His 
own  glorious  body,  and  with  Him  here  in  this  old  world  we 
will  rule  and  reign,  having  gotten  back  all  that  Adam  lost 
in  Eden,  and,  oh,  a  thousandfold  beside  all  that. 

King  of  Kings 
By  His  life,  death  and  resurrection  He  has  become  King 
of  kings  and  Lord  of  lords,  and  has  a  name  far  above  every 
name,  and  there  is  coming  a  day  soon  when  every  knee  shall 
bow  to  Him,  even  the  devil  and  all  his  subjects.    The  world 


90 


SERMONS  BY  PAUL  RADER 


system  as  it  is  shall  be  done  away.  The  curse  shall  be  lifted 
from  the  ground  and  the  living  creatures  below  man.  No 
more  place  of  vice,  no  more  graft  and  poverty  and  wrangle 
and  hatred  and  suffering,  and  misrule,  but  righteousness  and 
joy  under  His  loving  scepter. 

Our  High  Calling 
But  we  who  have  taken  Him  as  our  Saviour  and  King  and 
Conqueror  are  called  into  the  highest  of  callings.  We  who 
have  been  sinners,  servants  of  the  devil,  rebels  before  God, 
refusing  to  obey  His  voice,  have  come  over  now  under  His 
banners  and  are  not  only  to  be  His  subjects,  but  are  to  be 
His  Bride.  Think  of  the  great  grace  and  love  in  the  heart  of 
God  that  could  plan  such  a  glorious  redemption  that  one 
who  was  a  sinner  and  rebel  could  become  the  Queen  with  the 
King  upon  the  throne  of  this  wonderful,  everlasting  kingdom. 
If  this  vision  strikes  your  heart  you  will  never  think  of  life 
the  same  again.  Everything  around  you  will  glow  with  a  new 
meaning,  and  souls  for  whom  Christ  died  will  become  dearer 
and  more  valuable  than  any  treasure  of  earth.  You  will  catch 
the  call  of  His  love  to  things  which  angels  would  love  to  have, 
and  you  will  allow  nothing  that  the  world  has  to  offer  to 
keep  you  from  the  glories  that  are  in  Christ,  and  the  majesty 
that  shall  be  revealed  in  His  kingdom  when  He  appears  with 
ten  thousand  of  His  saints  and  sets  up  His  rule  over  all  the 
earth.  Yes,  God  and  humanity  are  going  to  get  together 
by  and  by,  and  the  kingdoms  of  the  earth  shall  become  the 
kingdom  of  our  wonderful  Lord  and  Saviour  Jesus  Christ,  and 
we  shall  be  His  Bride.    Praise  the  Lord! 

Jesus  Waiting 
Jesus  Christ  has  defeated  all  our  enemies.  Jesus  Christ 
has  returned  to  the  throne  of  His  Father,  there  to  wait  while 
men  filled  with  the  power  of  His  Spirit  carry  the  news  of  His 
victory  around  the  world,  and  call  upon  men  to  forsake  their 
sin  and  their  service  of  the  devil,  and  join  Him  and  His  king- 
dom. By  His  wonderful  life  He  offers  men  a  new  life.  By 
His  wonderful  victory  He  offers  victory  now.    By  His  won- 


KINGDOM  RECRUITING 


91 


derful  death  and  victory  over  death  He  offers  life  forever  to 
all  who  will  take  it,  and  He  is  now  patiently  waiting  for 
men  to  believe  Him  and  turn  from  darkness  unto  light. 

When  the  last  subject  has  given  His  heart  to  Jesus  and 
the  Bride  of  Christ  is  made  up,  then  our  blessed  Saviour, 
"The  Lord  Himself,  shall  descend  from  heaven  with  a  shout, 
with  the  voice  of  the  archangel,  and  with  the  trump  of  God : 
and  the  dead  in  Christ  shall  rise  first :  then  we  which  are  alive 
and  remain  shall  be  caught  up  together  with  them  in  the 
clouds,  to  meet  the  Lord  in  the  air,  so  shall  we  ever  be  with 
the  Lord."  Thus  shall  all  the  believers  be  caught  up  and 
changed  in  a  moment  in  the  twinkling  of  an  eye.  Then  will 
they  be  given  their  place  in  the  kingdom  and  return  with 
Him  to  the  earth  clothed  with  power  and  great  might  to  rule 
and  reign  with  Him  and  put  down  the  kingdom  of  satan 
and  sin  with  all  world  powers  under  man  rule.  Yes,  praise 
God,  we  will  return. 

Listen  to  God's  Word: 

"And  I  saw  heaven  open  and  behold  a  white  horse,  and 
He  that  sat  upon  him  was  called  Faithful  and  True,  and  in 
righteousness  He  does  judge  and  make  war.  His  eyes  were 
as  a  flame  of  fire  and  on  His  head  were  many  crowns,  and  He 
had  a  name  written  that  no  man  knew,  but  He  Himself,  and 
He  was  clothed  with  a  vesture  dipped  in  blood:  and  His  name 
is  called  The  Word  of  God.  And  the  armies  which  were  in 
heaven  followed  Him  upon  white  horses  clothed  in  fine  linen, 
white  and  clean,  and  out  of  His  mouth  goeth  a  sharp  sword, 
that  with  it  He  should  smite  the  nations:  and  He  shall  rule 
them  with  a  rod  of  iron:  and  He  treadeth  the  winepress  of  the 
fierceness  and  wrath  of  Almighty  God.  And  He  hath  on  His 
vesture,  and  on  His  thigh  a  name  written,  King  of  kings 
and  Lord  of  lords." 

All  Will  Not  Come  Under  This  Banner 
Standing  in  that  little  boat  on  the  little  lake  Jesus  did  not 
seem  a  king  but  He  is  indeed  King  of  kings  and  Lord  of  lords. 
From  that  little  boat  He  announced  what  the  kingdom  would 
be  like  while  He  was  in  the  glory  and  was  calling  through  men 
by  His  Spirit  for  subjects.  He  plainly  shows  that  while  the  in- 
vitation to  participate  in  His  glorious  victories  and  to  become 


92 


SERMONS  BY  PAUL  RADER 


one  with  Him  in  the  coming  Kingdom  is  extended  to  all,  that 
all  will  not  come,  and  that  of  the  many,  many  who  do  profess 
to  come  there  will  be  a  great  number  of  pretenders  who  really 
do  not  break  with  the  world  and  the  devil  and  the  flesh,  but 
make  a  profession  only.  He  shows  that  a  large  organization 
will  come  into  being,  which  people  can  join,  but  that  it  will 
not  be  made  up  of  real  subjects  of  this  coming  kingdom  but  of 
some  who  are  real  subjects  and  many  who  are  pretenders  but 
who  in  fact  are  of  the  world,  and  have  not  stood  against  satan 
in  the  power  of  Jesus'  name  and  sought  to  do  His  will. 

Some  Hear  His  Words 
Out  of  the  boat  speaking  to  the  multitude  that  day  Jesus 
shows  by  the  parable  of  the  sower  that  the  whole  world  will 
not  be  saved  before  He  ushers  in  His  kingdom.  He  shows 
that  some  hear  of  His  great  offer  but  pay  no  attention  to  it. 
These  are  the  stony  ground  sort.  Some  hear  it  and  start  but 
they  can't  stand  to  be  laughed  at,  and  they  stop.  These  are 
the  shallow-soil  quitters.  Some  start  and  get  a  good  growth, 
but  the  world  calls  too  loudly  and  they  keep  company  with  the 
same  old  gang,  and  they  get  choked,  and  you  never  hear  any 
more  about  them  but  that  "they  started,  but — Some  get  busy 
and  believe  with  all  their  heart  and  love  Him  and  trust  Him 
and  expect  Him  to  do  all  He  promises,  and  stick  true  to  Him 
and  the  interests  of  His  kingdom — these  are  the  real  subjects. 
He'll  rule  the  kingdom  with  these. 

Another  Wave  of  Parable 
Then  He  lets  another  wave  roll  and  break  in  parable  form, 
saying  "The  kingdom  of  heaven  is  like  a  man  who  sowed  wheat 
in  his  field,  but  while  he  slept  his  enemy  sowed  tares."  Here 
He  shows  that  while  true  Christianity  will  be  in  the  world, 
while  He  is  in  the  glory  waiting  for  subjects,  the  enemy  will 
start  something  that  looks  like  Christianity  and  get  folks  to 
join  it  and  it  will  all  be  under  His  name;  the  organization  will 
be  called  a  church  and  will  act  like  a  church,  and  yet  it  will 
be  no  more  made  up  of  His  real  subjects  than  tares  can  be 
wheat,  though  they  may  look  alike  to  some  folks.  In  this  par- 


KINGDOM  RECRUITING 


93 


able  He  asks  a  question:  Shall  the  tares  be  pulled  up?  The 
answer  is  that  they  shall  both  grow  along  together  until  the 
harvest  or  the  time  when  He  gathers  His  subjects,  then  He'll 
catch  up  His  own,  but  the  bluffers,  the  four-flushers,  the  hypo- 
crites, or  as  the  parable  calls  them,  the  tares,  He  will  put  in 
the  fire.  That  doesn't  sound  like  the  world  was  going  to  get 
better  and  better,  until  it  would  all  be  good  at  the  harvest 
time.  No,  sir,  wheat  is  wheat  and  tares  tares  up  to  the  har- 
vest, and  then  the  wheat  gets  the  kingdom  and  the  tares  get 
the  fire. 

Another  Wave 
Next  He  says  that  the  kingdom  of  heaven,  while  He  is  in 
the  glory  waiting  for  subjects,  is  like  a  mustard  seed  planted 
in  a  field  that,  though  it  is  small  it  somehow  has  a  very  pe- 
culiar growth  and  keeps  it  up;  yes,  a  very  unnatural  growth 
until  it  becomes  a  tree  so  that  the  birds  of  the  air  lodge  in  its 
branches.  Here  He  shows  that  the  organization  upon  which 
men  put  His  name  will  become  very  popular  so  that  the 
demons  of  hell  will  roost  around  in  it  but  it  will  not  be 
sincere  and  true  throughout.  What  better  picture  than  this 
of  a  place  called  a  church  pulling  off  a  show  or  an  organiza- 
tion calling  itself  Christian  giving  a  dance,  could  be  found? 
They  have  the  name  and  the  gathering  but  they  are  not  of  the 
kingdom.  They  seem  to  do  big  things  but  the  big  things  are 
roosts  for  the  devil  and  not  for  the  One  who  conquered  the 
world,  and  was  not  of  the  world. 

The  Jew 

Again  He  speaks  of  His  buying  a  field  because  it  has  a 
hidden  treasure.  You  remember  God's  great  promises  to  the 
Jews  and  you  must  remember  they  are  never  forgotten.  The 
Jews  are  scattered,  yes,  many  of  the  tribes  lost,  but  they  are 
in  this  field  called  the  world,  and  Christ  has  bought  and  paid 
for  this  world,  and  His  own  treasure  the  Jew  is  in  it,  and  He 
will  fulfil  all  His  promises  to  him. 


94 


SERMONS  BY  PAUL  RADER 


A  Precious  Pearl 
Yet  again  Christ  speaks  of  the  kingdom  of  heaven  as  a 
goodly  pearl  for  which  a  man  sells  all  he  has  and  buys  it. 
Jesus  gave  up  all  He  had  for  this  believing  crowd  of  His  sub- 
jects, which  He  calls  the  ecclesia — the  called  out  one — the 
Church.  This  is  His  Bride.  Through  them  He  is  speaking 
to  the  world  to-day.  They  have  not  all  been  gathered  in  yet, 
but  when  the  last  one  has  said  yes  to  Him  and  come  under 
His  banner,  that  long  expected  shout  will  fill  the  heavens 
and  the  voice  of  the  archangel  and  the  trump  of  God  shall 
sound,  and  we  will  be  with  our  King,  and  sit  down  to  the 
bridal  supper.    The  kingdom  will  have  come. 

What  Have  You  Done1? 
Think  of  all  that  He  offers  you,  my  friend.  What  have  you 
done  with  this  wonderful  offer  of  life  and  a  kingdom?  Are 
you  professing  without  possessing?  Have  you  come  out  open- 
ly for  Jesus  and  cut  a  clean  line  between  yourself  and  the 
world,  or  are  you  trying  to  play  both  sides?  Have  you  sworn 
a  fight  in  Jesus'  name  against  the  flesh,  are  you  enjoying 
victory  in  Jesus?  Line  up  now.  If  you  are  ashamed  of  Him 
before  men  He  will  be  ashamed  of  you  before  His  Father  in 
heaven. 

You  must  do  something  with  Jesus — 
Neutral  you  cannot  be. 
Some  day  your  heart  will  be  asking 
"What  will  He  do  with  me?" 

He  is  waiting  for  subjects.  Powers  are  being  shaken.  His 
kingdom  will  soon  be  ushered  in. 


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